


Here All Along

by Bbaegi



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, but like honestly this is the less angsty angst I've ever written, jongin is a cry baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 09:42:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 84,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19990033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bbaegi/pseuds/Bbaegi
Summary: The reason was right here all along, it just took Jongin a while to see it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by a legend I read about on twt but I unfortunately lost the tweet. If I ever find it again, I'll make sure to link it here!
> 
> Dear P, without you this fic wouldn't have been completed. Thank you for holding my hand through writing this. I can't stop hoping you'll want to grab it again someday.

Jongin was nothing but drowsy feet as he slid into the crowd stretched over the length of the tram stop. He was nothing but the weight he felt at the one very end of his existence, the meeting of the sole of his feet with the concrete, separated by the thickness of his shoes. They were new, felt sturdy and strong and sparkling. His feet were the only place on his body that felt like that, and all because of something that wasn’t an actual part of his own being.

It was noisy. Jongin was walking, sidestepping people coming from the opposite side, a woman dressed in a long skirt, skin darkened by the dirt of the streets and her hand held out in front of her, cupped with her palm up, a group of two students animatedly talking with their hands, so focused on each other that jongin had to take a big step to the left to avoid bumping into them. It was always crowded at this hour of the day, the tram stops, the trains, the school, even the walk from campus to the stop as people raced for a spot in the next tram. Someone laughed, voice chopped into individual but identical sounds that ran faster than Jongin walked.

A tram came from the opposite side, Jongin didn’t see it – he was walking behind the stop to avoid as much of the crowd as possible – but he heard the loud, single ring coming from the train. It didn’t resonate in his head, didn’t resonate in the air, but it lingered, elongated by the years distancing each step Jongin took. He wasn’t really walking, felt like he was just floating until the impact of the ground crashing against the bottom of his foot reverberated through his whole leg. A minute of floating, a second of ground, a minute of floating, a second of ground.

By the time he actually stood on the right side of the stop, towards the far end of it where there was a crowd and not a mob, Jongin had walked so much, for so long that it felt like he had dragged himself to somewhere else in France. But he was still here, in the same old city, facing the same tram stop, standing in the same spot he stood in at the end of every single school day, back facing the same middle school that never once crumbled no matter how many noisy kids it spat out at the same hour every single day. It wasn’t that hour, not now. It would’ve been much noisier if it had been.

A cyclist rushed by, on the rails, and Jongin heard the whoosh of the tires, then felt the shift in the air much longer after he stopped seeing the man’s red backpack. As if he were late, as if time was cycling too fast for him, as if he could never catch up. Like he was what time dragged behind, never looking back, never stopping, never giving him respite, just forcefully towing Jongin’s skin against the ground he’d fallen on. It was tiring to try and catch up when all he could feel was lethargy. Everything was slow. He was so slow, so slow he’d probably only feel that pain once it existed no more. The pain of being hauled forward.

Now, at the moment he turned his head to the right to look at the screen hung a few meters away and caught a glimpse of the ‘NEAR’ next to the train he was supposed to take, all he could feel was disappointment. He’d gotten a 11. Out of 20. In Modern Age and Renaissance Literature. Barely a passing grade. Barely. And it was a class he loved.

He heard a ring, blinked, and the tram stopped in front of him. He sighed when he saw how full it was, with people standing with their back against the closed doors. He didn’t even glance at the screen to see when the next train would arrive, he wanted to take this one and get off as quickly as possible and reach home and crash on his bed and sleep it all away. Or study, maybe he should actually study.

But it was too late. The grade was there. The exam had been taken in December, he was living the last few days of January. It had taken a whole month for grades to be delivered to them. He hated this college. He stepped inside the train, people tried their hardest to step back, he tried his hardest to go as far as possible so more people could get in behind him. The doors closed and Jongin was sandwiched between a bulky backpack digging into his back and a fury jacket hood tickling his chin unpleasantly. He hated this city and how full of people it was. He hated how he was so used to this. He barely wobbled on his feet when the train took off very slowly despite having nothing to hold on to. There was the roof handles but he’d elbow someone in the face if he tried raising his arm.

Fifteen minutes. It was only a fifteen minute long journey. Fifteen minutes of not being able to breathe properly and heat suffocating his soul inside his body.

He hated this, he hated his grade, he hated the hours he’d spent studying just to get that lamentable number. It was a passing grade that he didn’t even need to worry about but it was way too low for him to be happy about it.

The train was faster than that thought, halting at the next stop. More people got in, Jongin couldn’t see them but he felt them in the increase of the power asphyxiation held over him. The doors closed again with a ringing and cut off the slight breeze that had brought huge relief to his nape.

He wanted to sleep. He shouldn’t sleep when he reached home. He should do his homework for tomorrow. He’d already done his homework for tomorrow, he should study. But what could he study for when the semester had barely started last week? Still, he should study. He should study today’s classes, the notes he’d taken. That way it would be easier to revise everything when he’d be studying for midterms or finals in a couple months.

More people got in. The more people got in, the less free room there was in his head, the more he thought about how he was probably going to fail his entire life and wouldn’t even be able to find a job once he’d graduate and didn’t even know what job he was even aiming for yet. The backpack got off at the next stop, scratching against Jongin’s back as it turned towards the door. Once it was gone, it was no easier to breathe.

He focused on his breathing, inhaled, exhaled, inhaled fresh air, exhaled disappointment of it being gone when the doors closed, inhaled, felt that he actually had a nose on his face, felt that air actually slithered into his body, puffed his torso, probably puffed his lungs, puffed him up so much that the air was dying from lack of room in his body. Everyone got off two stations later, much longer later, the stop everyone usually got off at, the city center, with all the shops and malls Jongin knew by heart. He now had enough room to hold onto the short stale green bouquet of handles growing from the ground, at the center of the wagon. He could finally face the doors that opened instead of the doors that remained locked and closed throughout the journey.

He inhaled, the air felt charged with the memory of just how many people had breathed it in such a short amount of time. It felt clogged, stained by too many users, worn out. Jongin had learned to settle for mediocrity, he breathed it in longly, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, another stop had gone by. They were leaving again, the tram heading towards the train station. The railway curved right in front of it. He looked out the doors, watched as the scenery slowly shifted, warped around the train laggardly, like it was too tired.

Or maybe Jongin was the tired one and that was why everything around him was late. He watched the trees being left behind, watched the park right behind the stop, watched the park’s gates turning to the exhausted grey of the pavement, watched the building right in front of the train station as they passed by it.

It wasn’t as crowded as this morning, they’d put the fire out. He’d almost been late to class, the circulation cut off for a good part of the morning because of the fire that had taken place in that one apartment at the wee hours of the morning.

Between two slow blinks, his eyes took in the café at the corner of the block, climbed up to the white plains of the building, dragged themselves up to the black stains hanging bellow a burned window like dried tears.

The tram moved on, drove by, away. Jongin’s head turned to the opposite side, gaze stuck in the past, stuck to the window. Highest floor, center window. There was no more flames. Jongin felt the air around him boiling up, evaporating until there was not much for him to breathe in. There was no more flames. Jongin felt his skin heating up, his body steaming until it shrunk, until it was too small for him to be in it without feeling chained up in a room where sanity had no place. There was no more flames. Jongin felt them, felt something closing in on him, around him, inside of him, until his chest felt too narrow for the air passing through it.

He was still looking through the same spot on a window far on his right but he couldn’t see it, not the flames, nor the traces of a fire around a window. The tram hadn’t stopped. It was too far away now but Jongin was still stuck in the same place. Or the same place was stuck to him, clinging to his eyelids when he blinked and had a hard time opening his eyes again. Cleaved to him like the stench of dead wood bubbling to a darker, uglier death.

And then it was gone.

With the blink of the eye, it vanished. Jongin turned his head to look straight in front of him and saw the next stop pulling up to the train.

It wasn’t gone.

The door opened, the wind desperately huddled into the warmth inside the train. It wasn’t gone. It felt cut off, unwillingly. Unfinished. Uncompleted. There was more, there was a sequel, and Jongin hadn’t lived it. Maybe he’d been too late again.

It wasn’t gone, but replaced. He didn’t feel hot but heavy, he didn’t know where exactly, not on his feet, not on his chest, not on his shoulders. Somewhere. Somewhere hidden yet so consequential it was all he could feel as he stood unswayed by the train’s wobbly journey, so centered in him he scrunched his face, scratched his arm, lay a hand on his stomach, cupped the side of his neck. Nowhere. It was right there but nowhere. Maybe he’d figure it out later, once it was gone. Once it was too late.

The next stop would be his. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it with a press of his finger on the home button, swiped his thumb over the screen as he scrolled his social media timeline. With each swipe of his thumb, something dug deeper in his stomach. It wasn’t painful, just an alien sensation. Wrong. Something wrong. He’d never felt this wrong before.

The doors opened and Jongin looked up with the realization that the train had stopped. He stepped out, phone still in hand, and started walking through the few hours separating his house from the tram stop. He arrived three minutes later, unlocked the door with the key he’d found in his bag at the beginning of his long tiny journey, closed the door, took off his shoes at the entrance, put them neatly on the rack, and was finally home after what felt like an eternity.

With a sigh, he slid a strap of his bag down his shoulder and walked to the living room. His mother was already looking up at him when he breached the threshold of the doorless door, tablet in hand and glasses tucked way too low on the slope of her nose.

"Hi, honey," she said, lips spreading with the smile in her voice.

"Hey," he greeted back, taking his backpack off entirely and holding it in one hand, body flopping a little to the side. It wasn’t as heavy as what he’d felt at the bottom of his stomach back in the tram. "You reading?"

"Yeah, I found this new book about a murder in London," she said and Jongin nodded like he hadn’t already heard that last night. She always forgot. Or maybe she always repeated from lack of anything else to say. She read the title to him in French then naturally switched right back to their mother tongue. "How was your day?" She tucked her glasses up her nose with her little finger.

Jongin leaned his shoulder against the rim of the door space. "Great. Went to school. Came back," he said, even if he’d said the same thing to her yesterday. Jongin, too, repeated himself a lot from lack of anything else to tell her.

"How’s school nowadays?" she asked and Jongin wished she’d stuck to repetitions. But that was exactly what she did.

"Great." He straightened up, fiddled with the strap of his backpack. He knew what she was asking for. Numbers. She asked for numbers once a week, even if Jongin didn’t even have that many exams, only midterms and finals, often nothing in-between, save for the few oral presentations here and there. If he was lucky, she’d go two whole weeks without questioning him. "I still didn’t get any grades for my finals. I’ll tell you when I do."

He’d tell her the next grade. It would be a better one. It had to be. To his mother, an eleven was a five. Anything above that and bellow a fourteen was a ten, a _you could do better_ or a _you usually do better._ It depended on the mood, on the actual number.

"That school always takes months to give you your grades," she said, tone lowering into grumbles. Jongin couldn’t agree less. He shrugged, scrunching his face to show agreement. She smiled, looked back down at her screen. "Are you hungry? I can start preparing dinner, dad will be home soon."

"As you like. I can wait a little."

"I’ll start soon then," she hummed, pressing a finger against the screen, slowly dragging the text up.

Jongin hummed to put an end to his one daily interaction with his mother and let his feet sigh against the floor as they brought him to his room.

When Jongin opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that it wasn’t gone. It was still there. Right on top of him, right inside of him, all around him. That sensation.

He felt around with his hand, sliding it over the pillow, the mattress, under the pillow until he found his phone. He lit it up, closed his eyes at the splurge of light, opened them again but his phone had already darkened. A beat too late. He lit it up again and slapped the device face down on the mattress when he read what time it was. Three in the morning. He turned to lay on his back, closed his eyes, opened them, saw no difference in what he could, or couldn’t see.

It was too early, too dark, too stuffy in this room. The pillow felt wrong, the mattress felt wrong, he felt wrong. He laid there for a while, looking up at something he couldn’t see, looking up until he could actually see that there was a ceiling in his room, a lightbulb at the center of it, corners that melted down into walls. He blinked sluggishly, closed his eyes for a short time, opened them, grabbed his phone, looked at the time and sighed when he saw that not twenty minutes had passed since the last time he’d looked. He hadn’t felt them pass by him, hadn’t felt included in them.

He couldn’t breathe, he could breathe but hardly, he didn’t feel good breathing. It felt difficult. It felt forced, like something was preventing him from breathing, somewhere in his stomach or in his chest or maybe in his lungs or even in his throat. He didn’t feel the need to cough. He made himself cough, a weak sound so miserable it’s artificialness made Jongin feel pathetic. It was useless. It was still uncomfortable to breathe.

He didn’t know why he’d woken up. He’d fallen asleep around midnight, after studying and watching way too many videos and livestreams of people playing games he didn’t own yet. He parted his lips, inhaled a big gulp of air, so abundant and long it felt like it wasn’t a gulp but a bottle that he was breathing in, and exhaled it with a noisy blow, still through the mouth. Something was blocking him. Something didn’t allow the air to pass in. He couldn’t feel it reach the inside of his chest, his stomach was shriveling, dried up from the lack of air. But Jongin never really felt himself breathing anyway so maybe there was nothing but exaggeration in his mind. Or maybe not. It didn’t hurt physically, it just made him turn to lay on his left side, turn to lay on his right, turn to lay on his stomach, hands tucked under the pillow for a moment.

His body felt burdensome, doubled, like he wasn’t just himself, like he wasn’t just Jongin anymore, like he had something else in him, something far more imposing than his body was, far stronger. Something he couldn’t see, couldn’t figure out, but that he felt at the depth of his core, someplace in him that he didn’t even know existed.

He turned to lie on his side, with his eyes closed, he could barely even tell whether it was the right side or the left. He opened his eyes. Bedside table. Left side. He pulled the cover up to his ears, until his nose was blanketed, pulled his legs up against his chest, until he felt smaller than he knew he was. He tucked his hands between his legs, they felt cold, his neck felt warm, his body didn’t feel like his body.

It felt like something else, something new, something added to him. He turned around, took the same exact position, heard the brush of skin against fabric and fabric against fabric as he moved but heard it way too slowly, way after he was done actually moving. It was lagging.

Everything was lagging for Jongin. Slow, so slow. That was what he was.

His movements were drowsy, his breaths were too long. He could hear every single breath he took and he hated it. He hated how the distorted pace made it only louder in the silence of his room. Hated the fact that it was in his head. He knew it was. It all was just an impression. Nothing was slow or stretched or long.

He extended his legs, looked at the ceiling then turned to lay on his back, he breathed in and out a few times. He looked at the window. In. he felt a little cold. Out. He pulled the blanket up higher until the air he breathed in under it was warm. In. He should’ve worn a shirt to bed, he usually wasn’t cold but it was still January and sometimes his room got cold at night. Out. He put a hand on his stomach, felt the warmth of his skin against his palm, it felt like he was broiling, like he didn’t wear skin but embers on his body. In. He couldn’t associate the intake of air to the slight lift of his hand by his stomach so he removed his hand and put it on his chest instead. Out. He waited, immobile, felt for anything, waited to feel anything, anything that could’ve been what made it so stuffy inside of him, but there was nothing, no lump, no bump, nothing. He breathed in, breathed out and tapped on his chest with the tip of a finger.

He didn’t know why. Tap. It just felt like his chest needed a bit of cajoling, maybe that was why it had a hard time functioning properly. Tap. Maybe that was why it felt so crushed and inflated at the same time. He tapped with the tip of a finger first. Tap. Then let his other fingers join in one by one, then moved his hand at the wrist to gently tap on his chest with more than just the tip of his fingers. Tap. Tap.

He parted his lips and the next breath he sucked in was chopped up, so harshly the chunks of it were shivering as they went down Jongin’s throat. It assaulted him violently. The tapping ceased. As suddenly as the birth his eyes gave to a sensation of burning that not even the watering of his sight could extinguish. The first tear left his skin sizzling in its paths down his temple.

It was singular tears at first. Another two, simultaneous this time, then he turned to lay on his side, and unleashed the abundance in him. They didn’t drop, they flowed down his eyes, into his cheeks, some of them crossing the bride of his nose to find each other on the other side of his face. He bit his lip when the pillow started to feel damp against his skin, a heated kind of wetness. They flowed and they flowed but he couldn’t breathe any easier, it was worse, his breath nothing but saccades, jolty air that came out of him much easier than it went into his mouth.

And not a single tear lightened the weight in his body. It didn’t lighten it but it cleaned it up, poured over it, neatened it enough for him to make out what it really was. It wasn’t just a weight. It was a feeling of sorrow so dense Jongin could feel it on the tip of his fingers when he grabbed the fabric of his sweatpants and squeezed it in his hands as he weeped.

He cried for the hole opening up in his chest and absorbing the rest of him inside, draggy, excruciating, drop by drop. Somewhere unknown, densely packed and blackened with grief.

He tucked his hands between his legs, squeezed to stop himself from trembling. He felt sadder than he’d ever felt in his entire life. He crushed his lips together, hard enough to feel like that part of his face was entirely gone. He knew what it was but it didn’t make it feel any better, it only made it more obvious, less ignorable. His chest hiccuped with every mute breath he took, he kept his eyes closed, not because he thought it would stop the crying, but because he didn’t have the energy to keep them open. But maybe closing them took even more energy. He was wearing himself out.

He had no reason to cry. He truly had no reason to cry. He didn’t know why he was crying and that made him cry even harder. No matter how ridiculous it was and it felt, he couldn’t stop it. He didn’t feel slow, for once. _This_ felt too fast, rushing down his face but not emptying his body out of the anguish. Instead, the feeling bustled to stack up right on top of him, building up until trying to distinguish physically hurt him.

At one point it stopped. He stopped crying, remained idle in his bed, eyes opened but too exhausted to see anything they were looking at. The crying stopped, the feeling hadn’t shifted one single bit. It remained, intact despite the burn, despite the exertion, despite the tears.

Born out of nothing, it remained undying up to the wee hours of the morning. When Jongin couldn’t open his eyes anymore, he still felt it somewhere inside of him, unseeable but reigning over every single breath he took.

He felt those missed hours of sleep throughout the whole next day.

He had started class only at midday, had been able to sleep for a good part of the morning, but his eyes felt bleary the whole afternoon and as he listened to the last teacher of the day rambling about latin influences in French literature, Jongin could barely keep his eyes closed. His voice was distorted, it felt like he was speaking in slow motion, then like someone had sped up his words. Jongin’s head was so snug where his hands supported it, on his chin, knuckles grazing his mouth. The chair he was sitting on was the same kind of chair he’d been sitting on for a year and a half in this school and yet, it had never felt this comfortable before. If he closed his eyes, he could curl up and sleep right against the vulgar blue figure drawn on the table’s surface.

When he realized that he couldn’t see anything anymore, he dropped his hand, head lolling a little, and opened his eyes wide, staring at the woman sitting on top of her desk, at a corner of it, hands illustrating almost each of her words. She hadn’t seen him dozing off.

He sighed. He hated this. He hated that he had _cried_ a good part of last night and now could barely stay awake _and_ still feared he would burst into tears at any moment.

He sighed again. Crying was okay. Crying was good, there was nothing bad about it. Emotions were normal and accepted and Jongin had never thought that, as a man, he wasn’t allowed to cry. What was wrong was everything about this feeling that he couldn’t find the source of. Because it didn’t have any. A source, a reason, an explanation. None of that. And yet, Jongin had felt so down the whole day even his new shoes didn’t feel shiny anymore.

He looked down at his computer screen when he stopped following whatever the teacher was trying to explain. He looked at everything he’d typed. It was only half of what he should’ve written, probably. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this feeling. He didn’t like the fact that he could even feel such a strong thing. It felt too big for him, for the life that he was leading. Unnecessary, that was what it felt like.

It was gone now, he didn’t feel sad but for some reason, he feared it would come back. He didn’t want it to. He didn’t feel last night’s sorrow anymore, but he didn’t feel content either. He’d never really really been in an extreme state of happiness in his life, had never really felt a destructive kind of sadness either. Nothing usually angered him besides school matters, nothing usually made him want to dance out of joy either. He usually just felt neutral, feelingless, with little ups and downs. And it had always been great like that, he didn’t know why last night had happened.

Two classmates who sat in front of him whispered something to each other and he looked at them for a moment before focusing back on his computer. He almost had no battery left but the class would come to an end in half an hour, he knew it was enough to last until then. He stared at his notes, deflated, then opened up his browser. It was too late to save his notes for this class.

He turned his laptop to the left, tilting his body the same angle as he made sure that Lucas had minimal view on it from where he was sitting on his right, and opened up a website he usually never opened up in class. But today wasn’t a usual day. He barely even cared at this point, he only wanted to feel normal and poems always calmed him down and cheered him up.

He scrolled through the poem-a-day section, read today’s entry, but wasn’t impressed much by it. He scrolled through the website more, reading a few poems here and there, before stopping and thinking hard about the poem a friend of his had talked about a few days ago. She’d studied it in class and had talked about actually liking that one poem compared to what they’d been studying until then. Jongin had been impressed, Naomi’s attention span was really short, especially in class. He thought about it for a moment and once he recalled the title, he typed it into the search bar. _The Road Not Taken._

_By_ _Robert Frost_ , he read when the search options showed up. He didn’t click on the first option but on the second one, because that one was the website he always chose whenever he googled poems rather than searched them on a particular website. He rested his chin in his hand and started reading, smiling as soon as he read the first two lines. _Two roads diverged in a yellow wood / And sorry I could not travel both._ It had a tranquility about it, the voice in his head was leisurely as he read it, not joyful but content. He reached the second stanza’s end and decided that he liked this poem without needing to explore it to the end.

And when he did finish reading the poem in its entirety, the corners of his lips quivered into an unfinished smile. He loved it, appreciated the message, understood the image of how taking a road less traveled could lead to a difference.

He started reading the poem again, stanza by stanza, reading each of them several times to truly take in each word and each meaning he hadn’t seen on the first read.

"You can really understand all of that?"

Jongin’s eyes shot up to his right, where Lucas was leaning towards his computer, eyes stuck to the screen. Jongin didn’t close the window because that would be suspicious.

"Yeah," he laughed, quiet because they were in class, muted from the lack of sincerity.

"It’s a poem," Lucas noted, eyebrows furrowing as he tried reading it.

Jongin truly didn’t understand why someone who hadn’t looked away from the teacher even once except to take notes suddenly had gotten distracted from the class and was paying attention to what he was doing. But that was Lucas.

"Yeah, a friend told me to read it because she liked it or something," he explained, closing the page and displaying his class notes again.

Lucas stopped leaning too close to him but remained turned towards him.

"You’re so good at English. And I suck so much at it," he snorted, the width of his smile indicating that while self-deprecating, he could still find it funny enough.

"You’re not _that_ bad," Jongin said, insisted on that word enough for Lucas to know he didn’t mean it at all and scrunch his face at him in fake offense.

"Did you do your homework, by the way?" he asked and Jongin could tell he was tired of this class by the way he’d left the last sentence on his screen unfinished, chopped off in the middle.

Everyone was tired of this class, he didn’t even need to look around to know it, it was a two-hour long class and the sun had already set outside. Only seventeen minutes left.

"Yeah, I did it in the tram yesterday while going home," he said, looking at the teacher when she said something and a few people laughed.

"It took you fifteen minutes to do it?" Lucas hissed, eyebrows raising way too high like they always did whenever he was surprised. "I’ve been on it since last night and I still haven’t finished."

Jongin scrunched his face. Lucas had always been expressive with his face but never really good at using English to express anything.

"I can help you if you want," he offered like he always did. English didn’t count for much credits but it could still be a good boost in grades. Lucas didn’t particularly need a boost but Jongin often helped him understand as many things as possible.

"Nah," he shrugged, turning to his screen and opening up his Facebook profile. Jongin made it a point not to look at the screen, he knew dozens of food videos was what he’d be torturously watching. "I’ll just pass it. He’s not gonna collect it anyway, right?"

Jongin shook his head and looked back at the teacher. She was standing on the far left of the room, near the door from where she was speaking with grand, passionate gestures. A passion Lucas never had about English. Like a majority of people who took English with them. They’d all given up early into the year, making next to no progress until now.

Lucas turned to his left when Lisa, sitting on his other side, leaned to whisper something to him. Her eyes met Jongin through it and she wiggled her eyebrows, making herself look very stupid. Jongin snorted silently and focused back on the class for the last fourteen minutes left.

They were long, he almost fell asleep twice through it, jumping a little on his seat when everyone started moving and making noise by pushing their chairs back and dragging the legs on the floor. He stretched his arms over his head, looking around himself, and when he dropped his arms again, they felt so heavy they could’ve sunk down through the floor if his lap hadn’t been there to catch them first.

"We should go get a drink or something," Lucas said as he stood up and fitted his laptop into his bag. It was barely past six in the evening.

"Oh god, yes," Lisa instantly agreed, looking heavenward in an expression of pure relief. Jongin snorted his amusement out as he stood up. He felt not even half of that enthusiasm. He wanted to go home. Going out with them implied getting home around at least midnight because they weren’t going there to get drunk but to drink and drinking came with long conversation and laughter. "Let’s eat something first though, I’m starving."

"Yeah we could get pizza or something," Lucas suggested, looking at Jongin for confirmation.

He wrinkled his face into a tight smile. "It’ll be without me." Lisa whined in disappointment without losing a single second and Jongin shriveled his smile, hoping she’d understand. "I went to bed too late last night, spent too long gaming. So I’m pretty tired."

Lucas gave him a pat on the shoulder. "You better go and get some sleep and practice some more because I’m gonna beat your ass at Fortnite soon, dude."

Jongin gave him a heavily fake laugh that only made Lucas slap his shoulder harder in mock offense.

"It’s okay we can do this another time, I’ll snap you anything funny that happens," Lisa promised him, lifting her bag off the table and hanging it on her shoulder.

"What do you expect to happen exactly?" Lucas threw at her, voice jumping high and fast into suspicion.

She snorted. "I always expect the worse with you."

Jongin chuckled, a sound that was sincere in its weakness. Maybe he should actually go and spend some time with his friends. They always made him laugh harder than anyone else with the stupidest, smallest things.

But laughing took too much energy, no matter how easily it was pulled out of him. He just wanted to get some sleep, a very long sleep that would last until whatever was wrong with him vanished as suddenly as it came onto him. Maybe it was the flue.

"You guys can go first," he interjected into the bickering that could last a whole five minutes. "Don’t wait for me, I’ll go to the bathroom first."

"We can wait for you," Lucas said, waving a discarding hand in front of him.

"It’s okay, there’s no need." He didn’t want to deal with them, even if just thinking that way made him feel a little worse. But Jongin had the feeling it would take him a hundred years to get out of campus and he didn’t particularly feel like sharing the slowness with anyone at the moment. "Go on," he reassured them with a bigger smile, gesturing towards the door.

There wasn’t many people left in the room, two students behind them and a group of four discussing with the teacher at her desk. He hadn’t even closed his laptop yet.

"Alright then, see you tomorrow," Lisa yielded, pulling Lucas back with the sleeve of his hoodie. They probably found it weird but Jongin was grateful they still chose to leave him alone.

As they walked away with a last pair of waves towards him, she started nagging at Lucas for never wearing a coat. Jongin didn’t need to walk out of the door with them to know that Lucas was boasting about never getting sick _despite_ that.

With a sigh that felt heavy enough for half of his body to have fallen with it, Jongin put his laptop into his bag.

He left the room and decided to take the long way out of campus to make sure they were far enough ahead of him and they wouldn’t end up meeting at the tram stop while they’d be waiting for the train. He passed by the vending machines near the library and stopped in front of them just to waste some more time. He contemplated the different options, gaze lingering on the bright red of a pack of Skittles.

Maybe his body just needed a bit of happy color. But the pack here looked too small. He should swing by the market and buy it there instead. Jongin felt so gloomy he’d need to pour the biggest possible pack into his mouth for an effective transfer of rainbow.

A jump quaked through Jongin’s body, stretching from the top of his head to the tip of his toes, everlasting up until he opened his eyes then widened them in disorientation.

It felt like his eyes were floating away from his body as he took in his surroundings, an elderly woman’s wrinkles sitting in front of him, a young woman’s head swaying to the rhythm he couldn’t hear in her headphones, a fountain frozen on the other side of the window, scared by the tram’s noisy journey as it passed right beside it. Jongin blinked and the water flowed again, a rush of anger that seemed to have been contained for a thousand years.

He’d fallen asleep in the tram, he hadn’t missed his stop, his lower back hurt a bit from how hunched towards the was window he was. The only thing that wasn’t kneaded into lethargy was the whining he could hear. It didn’t come from the music in his earphones. Violin. The same tune he heard way too often in these trams. He hated it, it was always the same four songs back to back. He increased the volume of his music and swore to himself that this time, he wouldn’t look at the man who played it, accompanied by music that came from the stereo he brought along with him wherever he went.

He sighed, body puffing up and deflating again right away. He usually didn’t fall asleep while commuting. He had too much sleep to catch up on. He should take a nap later. Maybe he deserved it.

When the violin abruptly stopped, Jongin braced himself. No one was sitting next to him, he was directly visible, reachable. He could hear the endless string of _thank you ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much_. The lights outside looked pretty, warm and dimmed, illuminating the façades they were stuck against. _Thank you ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much._ The train caught up to a boy skating leisurely along the rails, left him behind. _Thank you ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much._ It felt like the man was stuck inside his own voice, ceaselessly repeating and replaying and repeating and jammed and Jongin didn’t feel much, but this wasn’t like what he usually felt. He felt nothing but it was a different kind of nothing, an unpleasant kind of nothing.

"Thank you ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much," the familiar voice resonated next to him and as if mastered by the enchantment of habit, Jongin’s head turned towards it.

"Sorry," was all he said and despite himself, despite telling himself not to look, see, or hear, the nothing he felt turned into a deep dislike towards himself for never having cash on him.

"Thank you ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much," the man said, barely even stopping to look at him. Habits. He didn’t like it. Jongin caught a glimpse of the lone coin inside the battered coffee cup he was holding before he walked away. He wondered if that was the only French the man knew. He’d never heard him speak anything else.

Jongin’s eyes trailed after him, he sighed again, this time so loudly that he could hear it through his music. He looked at the people sitting across him, felt too loud, and increased the volume of his music. It was too low.

He got off a few stops later and headed to the mart right behind the tram stop, zigzagging through the crowd waiting to get into the train, ignoring the dead carousel’s lively colors and striding towards the doors instead. He wanted to get home as fast as possible, he barely looked at every single person he was avoiding to collide against. The city center was always more crowded at this time of the day, people gathering up to hang around the bars and cafés or even shop before everything closed.

He stopped in front of the doors then, swinging his backpack to hold it in front of himself. He tugged the zipper open with a hand and fiddled inside with the same one to feel for his wallet, checking just in case he’d forgotten it at home. When he felt the leather under his fingers, he pulled his hand out and zipped his bag up, or tried to do so for an aeon, the zipper stubbornly remaining stuck somewhere along the way. When it finally yielded with a strident wail, Jongin put his bag on properly and looked in front of him, not at the doors but at the man standing besides them, back to the wall, face to the ground. Asian. That was the first thing Jongin noticed, then he saw that his features looked crushed together like wrinkled paper, veiled in the same paleness.

Jongin bypassed him and walked in, heading to the candy aisle as fast as possible, grateful that the store wasn’t as crowded as it could be at this hour of the day. He easily found a pack of Skittles, easily grabbed it, but stared at it with difficulty.

He shook the red pack, listening to the beady crashes coming from inside. The packaging was so colorful in its promise of a rainbow, red, orange, green, yellow. The purple one was Jongin’s favorite. He’d have to eat all of this tonight. They were all so colorful. Jongin’s life felt pretty monochrome compared to that or maybe not even monochrome maybe Jongin’s life was just washed out from any color or maybe not even that because to be washed out there needed to be some color in the first place.

But eating these colors would make him happy, it would.

He cleared his throat as soon as it felt weird again. Not weird, just that feeling again, like it was expanding but narrowing at the same time, like something was trying to burst out of it while simultaneously struggling to crawl down into the deepest part of him. He moved his hand, lowered it down when the beads of sugar sang, raised his other hand to run it over his face. When he dropped his hand again, it felt like he’d been holding it up forever, a soreness weighing it down on the arm.

He took a deep breath in, didn’t tremble when he released it. It took five years for that breath to go back out the way it came in, there was no way he could feel it shake in such a slow motion. Jongin hadn’t changed one bit in those five years. Nothing about him had changed.

He turned around and headed to the check out corner of the store, stood in line and gripped the pack of candies in his hand, looked straight ahead of him and then looked down to the yellow staining the white on that one corner of his left shoe. The line was too long, the person standing in front of him had too many things in their basket, he should’ve stood in another line but now it was too late and he had to stay here and wait and enjoy all the empty time he had to entirely feel the discomfort gradually growing in him.

Crossing his arms, he hugged the Skittles against his chest. The retaliation to the bright colors came with a layer of stuffiness wrapping around him. Skintight but unnatural, similar to the sensation of having warmth shoved into his pores by a bulky, woolen scarf tied around the neck. It wasn’t cozy. It was constricting.

Jongin only took three slow breaths until it was his turn. He took more. Or hadn’t. He was lagging behind the flow of time again. He checked out and left the store. He almost bumped into that same paper man. He took a good look at his face. He’d never seen someone so pale. Translucent paper. Jongin needed to stop exaggerating things. Because he was only exaggerating, being dramatic. That was it. The stranger wasn’t standing next to the doors but in front of them, this time, and he wasn’t a grimacing face either anymore. He looked away before their eyes could meet on a path to awkwardness.

Hurriedly, Jongin walked away, keeping the Skittles in his hand. Night had fallen long ago. Their liveliness could be some kind of protection against whatever was looming over him, so dark he couldn’t even make out what it was exactly despite all the lights circling him.

2:18.

He was still awake.

He couldn’t stop himself from being awake, couldn’t change the state he was in, didn’t remember how that shift from awake to slumberous was supposed to be made.

He’d eaten all the Skittles, and had done his homework, and had listened to a lullaby playlist for an hour and had eaten his colors, and eaten, and eaten, and eaten but they never diffused into him, only got crushed under his teeth. His jaw still hurt from chewing so much.

He shouldn’t have chewed. He should’ve just kept them idle in his mouth, until the color was all melted into him, gone from the candy. Maybe it would’ve worked then.

Turning to lay on his other side, he stretched an arm in front of him, observing his fingers and their natural crook. He felt cold under his nails and slid the hand under his blanket that he pulled up to his nose. He bit his lower lip, teeth catching on dead skin at the corner of his mouth and then pulling, peeling. He stopped and pressed his lips together until he didn’t have them anymore. When he let the lower part of his face morph back into a mouth, a sharpness punched through his chest and burst out of his eyes.

He closed them, and turned his face to press a good half of it into his pillow, kicking the bottom of his blanket until he freed his feet. He felt the wetness on his eye even though he was pressing it hard against the cushiness of his pillow.

He hated this. He hated that he was crying in the middle of the night again. Ridiculous. It was as if his body had known that he would cry and had kept him awake just for that cruel purpose. He hated it so much, he hated the sensation of dampness on his skin, the warmth pooling on the fabric of his pillowcase, the burn in his eyes, and the sensation lancinating against his chest, in short but sudden waves.

It was too abrupt. Two seconds ago he’d been dormant. Normal. Now, he had to clench his jaw hard to keep any sound in, _had to_ feel the jumpiness of his chest. An elevation, a stutter he didn’t control. A knot in his chest punching but never piercing through.

It wasn’t pain per se, it didn’t really hurt physically, it just felt wrong, like whatever he was feeling had no place in his body, like whatever was growing in his heart and struggling to be noticed had no room there. It came and went. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed a hand against his mouth because he was breathing too loudly, it peaked in his chest, like a bump growing out of him and maybe Jongin shouldn’t have eaten all those skittles, maybe they’d accumulated into a mountain heightening in his chest and crumbling all at the same time, with intervals but never with lesser strength.

And it did hurt, actually. It hurt in an angering way. He was sad. This was it. This was just it, it didn’t take that much effort to recognize it. But he didn’t know why he was sad and that made him sadder and angrier and he despised every single tear he cried but they kept coming and Jongin felt like the world was being ripped out from his body and he was left all alone, sucked into the pit of the mountain in his chest.

It hurt and he didn’t know why. He had no idea why he was crying like his heart was stolen, he had no idea why he was sobbing like all he had ever known was misery. Because it wasn’t the case. It really wasn’t. Up until two days ago, he spent his nights sleeping with next to no care. Not enough care to react this way, at least.

This felt novel, completely alien to him, but so rooted into him that it would be impossible to pull it out and get rid of it. But it didn’t make sense. He shouldn’t feel this way. He had friends and a family and he was doing great in school and he had so many things he liked to do. But it felt like everything was incorrect, like something had gone amiss without him noticing it before, like it was squeezing him and stretching him, moulding him and controlling him.

Jongin turned to lay on his back only once his eyes weren’t water anymore but flames. He felt battered, his arms trembled under the weight of the rest of him. Simultaneously, he felt as if there was nothing of him left, all depleted and consumed up to the last drop.

He spread his whole body out, extending his existence on the bed as much as possible, in a vein attempt at flattening the barrel of pain in him so it would hurt a little everywhere instead of lashing out in a single place. It was gone. A pounding in his head and the impression that he was hanging from the ceiling were the only vestiges left to him. Heavy boulders still compressing his breath, his existence. But better. It was a little better now.

He didn’t need to look at the time to know that this night had lasted a thousand years and he’d remained awake for almost the entirety of it.

Jongin hated having class early in the morning. Not because he had to force himself to wake up, even if that did play a big part too, but mostly because trams were an unreachable hell from 7:00 to 8:30. Jongin never got in the first arriving tram and even when he did get into a tram often around ten minutes later, he was always squished into an annoying and annoyed mob.

Even just standing at the stop to wait for the train to come was a torture he couldn’t wait to free himself from. He disliked big cities so much, had lived in this one his whole life, and dreamed of somewhere emptier, quieter, and greener.

A tram arrived with three urgent rings, Jongin looked towards it to see a middle aged man walking in the middle of the railway. He turned towards the tram and started screaming injuries. It took him a few more angry tings to get off the rails and stand on the waiting area instead. Mornings in this city meant headaches. Jongin made sure not to move to avoid bumping into anyone. He didn’t feel sad today so far, just a bit grumpy, but he was pretty sure it would go away as soon as he’d be sitting in peace somewhere on campus.

A train arrived, not the line he was supposed to take but another one that always dumped a crowd into the stop. The doors opened and Jongin took only a step back to make room for people to get off, he couldn’t move further seeing as two people were already standing behind him.

He pulled a hand out of his pocket, phone coming out with it. He still had forty minutes to reach campus, if he took the next tram it would be okay. He held his phone against his stomach and looked to his left, squinting his eyes. The screen was too far for him to properly see how long there was left until the next train, he wasn’t sure whether what was displayed was a 2 or a 5. A girl rushed past him, almost trampling over his feet. Irritation pushed his head to follow her for a moment. He sighed loudly, then turned his head back towards the screen.

It wasn’t numbers that he saw but a face he had seen only yesterday. The paper-pale guy who’d been standing in front of the store and who he’d almost bumped into. His skin wasn’t as sickly pale as yesterday. He was coming towards Jongin who noted with a hint of reassurance that he wasn’t the only one to always step around people, the guy was zigzagging around everyone to avoid them. No one did it for him, no one stepped aside. Jongin sometimes truly hated people. He was pretty sure this guy hated people too for the same exact reason, even if his face didn’t look as hateful as it did the first time Jongin had seen it. Not that it really was hate or anger, he had no means of knowing that for sure, but maybe something that felt as ugly as anger did.

Jongin looked away when the guy was close enough, unwilling to make awkward eye contact or seem like he’d been staring at him, even if that was exactly what he’d been doing. He’d noticed that the guy was wearing the same exact hoodie as yesterday, dark brown, and once again, that comforted Jongin in the fact that he too wore the same item of clothing several days in a row. Maybe he was a college student too.

He lit his phone up to check the time, heard someone grumbling about delays in the trams. He looked up to the screen and indeed, there was a message running at the bottom of it, one that he couldn’t read but knew by heart. It happened way too often, these delays. What didn’t happen too often in this wide city was seeing the same stranger twice and having that stranger stand near him on all occasions. He was now standing right beside Jongin who chose not to stare at him any more, only noting that he was taller than most people around them, before unlocking his phone.

He looked at the block on the screen that gathered the different games he had on his phone, wondering for a moment if he felt in the mood to focus on anything that might give him frustration from losing. He wasn’t. Instead, he opened his browser and typed in _on joy and sorrow khalil gibran._ He wanted to read his favorite poem. This was the perfect moment to read it so, lightly, he grazed his thumb on the screen to open it up.

He read it once, took a deep breath at the end of it, read it twice, tilted his head from one side to the other as he felt the tension of irritation thawing away with every word he read, then focused on a paragraph.

_Some of you say ‘Joy is greater than sorrow’ and the others say ‘Nay, sorrow is the greater’._

_But I say unto you, they are inseparable._

_Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed._

He read it over and over again, read it in his head without needing his eyes to even move across the screen.

He locked his phone when he heard the bell of a tram and scratched the side of his neck with a finger. He closed his eyes for a moment, until he heard the train slowing down in front of him.

It would be okay. It was okay, it had passed. And it would pass, even more. It always did. Once this would pass, he’d be happy again. Or normal. He’d be normal, if not happy.

He opened his eyes and stepped forward once everybody was done getting off the train. People pressed around him, rushing to get inside too.

Jongin smelled the stink of dirt and piss as soon as he was inside and he hated this city and its people all over again. Maybe he should’ve waited for the next train, like non-paper guy did.

Jongin dropped his chin into his palm, closed his eyes, and wished he’d fall asleep until the end of this class. It was amazing how some teachers could seem less learned than their students.

This particular man kept mixing up definitions and literary styles and Jongin wasn’t even sure what he taught them was right. But they all still learned it _and_ had to double check. Many people had stopped coming to this class entirely and were studying while solely relying on textbooks. He wished he’d so the same but he was way too paranoid not to come to class.

He decided to stop trying to listen, only paying half attention to whatever the teacher was saying. He had such a low voice too, it was difficult for it not to sound like the most efficient lullaby he’d listened to as a toddler.

Deciding to distract himself for the remaining hour of the class, he messed around on his laptop a little bit, reading a few articles, taking two silly buzzfeed quizzes, before looking at Lucas sitting next to him. He was hanging on, still taking notes, and not wanting to disturb him, Jongin looked around him instead, meeting eyes with Lisa for a wiggly eyebrow-ed moment. He observed everyone he could see, all of his friends were sitting on the same row and he leaned forward to be able to see all of them. He just needed to make sure someone wanted to die as much as he did and Olivia who sat right next to Lisa seemed to be the best contestant out of everyone else. He furrowed his eyebrows, taking in the empty look in her eyes coupled with the deeply worried lines between her eyebrows. She wasn’t taking any notes but was staring at her notebook, pen immobile in her hand.

He had noticed that she looked a little down since earlier but had assumed she was tired. Now, it looked like something a bit worse than exhaustion. Jongin pursed his lips, looked down at his keyboard for a while as he settled back in his chair normally, before grabbing his phone from where it lay next to his computer, on the table, and opening up his messenger app.

_You look like you want to die and you know what same but :( are you okay?_ he quickly typed, sending it before adding another message. _You’ve been down since earlier, I feel like._

Jongin put his phone down on his computer, next to the trackpad, and busied himself by scrolling on his facebook feed while waiting for an answer that came almost right away.

_Yeah this man makes me regret choosing this major lmao_ , she replied. _But yeah I don’t feel that great._

_Do you wanna talk about it?_ he asked, furrowing his eyebrows at the screen.

Olivia was usually always in a pretty good mood. It was weird seeing her down, he didn’t really like it. He didn’t like any of his friends feeling down.

_It’s just that I had a really shitty grate at the latin culture midterm and I’m probably gonna have a worse grade at the final and I just wanna cry honestly this is fucked up I dont understand why that subject counts for so many credits I really don’t wanna have to repass it but I feel like I will._

Jongin understood that feeling. It was only a midterm exam but it counted for a good part of the final grade and there was nothing as demotivating as having a shitty grade at that exam. He knew it very well but he didn’t think it would affect Olivia this much. The final grades for that subject hadn’t been given out yet so they didn’t know how much damage there would be. Though, he knew Olivia had gotten a 7/20 at the midterm and he could imagine how that could feel like the end of the world. He’d experienced it before, they all had. Her stressing about her final grade was nothing short of normal, especially under those circumstances. And while she wasn’t really an anxious person, he wouldn’t hold it over her. That subject was really difficult, Jongin had to revise it twice to be able to understand everything properly.

_It’s gonna be okay, really. You’re an amazing person and you’re very smart and yeah I do understand why it sucks but believe me it’s just one grade out of many and you had pretty good grades for the other exams so you can catch up on the final if you do get a low grade! why do you feel like you’re gonna fail it though?_

Lucas snorted besides him and Jongin glanced at him. He’d lost too, he was smiling at a message on his phone. Before Jongin could spy on the name, his phone lit up again.

_No I really won’t catch_ up. Jongin pursed his lips. Most of her other grades didn’t go bellow a 10, the minimum passing grade. _My notes are shitty I can’t understand anything from them and even if I started taking good notes now it’s still half of the year that I didn’t understand and failed_

Jongin turned towards her, trying to catch a glimpse of her but Lisa was too hunched over the table for him to see. He felt really bad, she sounded like she was giving up completely.

_Why didn’t you tell us you had a problem with your notes?_

_I don’t know I thought it would be okay but guess I was wrong lol_

Jongin scratched the side of his neck with a finger. He could fix this. He should fix this.

_I can give you the notes I’ve taken so far this semester so you can use them for finals and we can go over your future notes together while studying_

_Maybe that would help us both it’s always easier together_

_We can take care of the notes problem don’t worry :(_

_You won’t mind giving them to me?_

Jongin huffed a laugh out. In his head. This teacher hated noise. _Of course not, if I did I wouldn’t offer, silly._

Crying emojis were spammed all over his screen then, followed by a _THANK YOU YOU’RE THE BEST!!!!_

Jongin smiled. _Nope I just take good notes I gotta brag by sharing them ;)_

He bit his lip not to laugh at the gif she’d sent him, a child nodding their head too enthusiastically with too weird of an expression.

_Thank you so much again :( I’ll focus on the class now to take better notes so we can just put everything in common!_

_Alright! I’ll send you everything tonight!_

More crying emojis ensued and knowing that Olivia now felt the contrary of what she was sending was enough for Jongin to put his phone down with a smile and earn the motivation to follow the teacher’s ramblings until the end of the class.

"What else do I need, Jongin?"

Jongdae pressed his lips together, letting them disappear under the weight of his thoughts. As they both stood there, between the pasta and tea aisles, Jongin realized that they had an identical expression whenever they were thinking, except Jongin did that expression while staring at people’s face and Jongdae did it while staring at nowhere in particular.

It was a funny expression, a funny similarity that he liked. They were pretty similar. Even their name started the same way, that was what how they’d bounded at the party they’d met at close to a year ago. It was also there that they were told they had the same exact _Chinese face_ by people they’d both never talked to again.

"Toilet paper?" Jongin said, suggesting the first thing that popped up in his mind.

"Right!" Jongdae chirped, heading to the aisle right away.

Jongin snorted as he followed him. He was here literally because Jongdae had texted him that he had to go buy toilet paper and was wondering if Jongin wanted to come along after class. Now, Jongdae was holding three packs of differently flavored chips, a pack of Snickers, and a bottle of Sprite. As usual. Surprisingly no beer.

Jongin grabbed the bottle and the Snickers from him as they arrived so he had room in his hands to actually grab a pack of toilet paper.

"Did you get back your grades for finals?" Jongdae asked as he reached for the item.

"Yeah," Jongin sighed, shrugging when Jongdae looked at him. "Just one grade and it wasn’t really great. Eleven."

"It’s not that bad, knowing you your grades will only get better going from there," Jongdae said, gently tapping the top of his head with the pack of toilet paper.

Jongin groaned and threatened to drop the bottle to the floor. Jongdae knew he wouldn’t do it and simply turned around to walk into a random aisle full of spices.

"I didn’t even get a single grade back yet. I hate this uni so much," he muttered, frowning at the spices.

"Same," Jongin sighed, reaching to turn a bottle until he could see the label properly. "How’s it going with Lyn?" he asked then, tone careful and eyes attentive as he looked at Jongdae. He noticed the jolt at the corners of his lips, not upwards.

"Still the same," he sighed, grabbing a bottle Jongin couldn’t read the label of. "She’s still contacting me pretty regularly."

"But she broke up with you," Jongin said, fully knowing that Jongdae was aware of it. But sometimes Jongdae talked about her like he’d forgotten that fact.

"Yeah but she keeps talking to me." Jongin took the bottle from Jongdae when he struggled with holding everything properly. They should’ve taken a basket or something. "She still tells me about her days and the other day she asked me if I regretted it."

"Regretted what?" Jongin questioned, shaking the bottle in his hand to hear the signature dusty sound of turmeric. He didn’t like what Lyn was doing. "She’s the one who broke up with you. You didn’t do anything."

"I know," he sighed, looking back at the rows of various spices. He wouldn’t take any more, Jongdae just didn’t like to talk about his feelings and preferred looking at anything but the person he was talking with. "I really don’t know what to do. I can’t even reject her. It makes me happy that she’s still talking to me. But at the same time, we often end up arguing and? I don’t even even know what we are?"

"Yeah, I can imagine how complicated it can be." Jongin had never been in this situation, his two break ups had always both been clean-cut, but he could still imagine how difficult it would be to break up with someone you’d spent three years with. But that didn’t change the fact that it was wrong, whatever Lyn was doing and maybe even Jongdae’s approach to it. "I think you should tell her clearly about your feelings."

"But what should I say? I really don’t know," Jongdae said, voice gritted into uncertainty.

Jongin reached to pat his shoulder with the pack of snickers.

"I think you should tell her that," he stopped to think for a moment before continuing, "that it’s either she’s all in or not at all. That if she wants to truly break up with you, then she should let go of you because she’s only torturing you like this. You can’t even heal from something if you don’t know whether you’re supposed to or not. If she doesn’t want to break up, then you can start truly fixing it together. You’re just standing in the middle now and it doesn’t do either of you any good."

Jongdae’s shoulders deflated and they started walking out of the aisle together.

"You’re right," he said, taking a left towards the check out area. "It would be much better to know where we stand. So we can both do what’s appropriate."

"I know it’s difficult though," Jongin said, because he knew hearing advice was the easiest thing in the world but actually applying it was another matter. "So take your time. As long as you know you want to keep talking to her the way she does, it’s already a good first step. Talk to her about this whenever you feel ready to do it."

"Thanks," Jongdae said as they stood in line, turning to him with a tightlipped smile but features that were looser, not as elongated by tension.

"I should charge you with a hundred bucks for Auntie Jongin’s advice but I’ll let it go this time."

"Auntie Jongin-" Jongdae repeated, chortling the name away.

Jongin shrugged, laughing along. He liked to think he was like that one auntie always patting people’s back and listening to their problems and giving them candy. Even if Jongdae was paying for his own candy right now.

"You can talk to me too, you know. If anything ever bothers you. I always do the emotional ranting here," Jongdae huffed, bumping his shoulder against his as he put everything he was holding on the check out mat.

Jongin smiled, putting whatever he was holding down too. He knew it very well.

"I know, thanks," he said. Hearing that made him feel a little happy, even if he already knew it. Hearing it was still a very reassuring feeling, even if he didn’t ever have much to share with anyone.

After paying, they got out and while Jongdae was struggling to shove the toilet paper in his bag, which made him look more ridiculous than just holding it in his hands like a normal person, Jongin strayed from laughing at him when he saw a dog a few meters away. It was one of these very small, very noisy dogs that just _begged_ to be patted and cooed at but this one was being pulled back by its owner while barking aggressively. At the stranger he’d seen so much so many days in a row that he didn’t feel like a true stranger anymore.

This time, he didn’t look happy. And Jongin understood, he’d be looking just as sad if a dog acted this way with him. It would feel like a puppy hated him and that was the only kind of end of the world Jongin wished to avoid.

And the stranger didn’t look paper-pale anymore. But he was still wearing the same hoodie and ripped black jeans. Jongin could relate, he’d been wearing this sweater since yesterday. Before he had time to properly empathize with the guy’s sadness, Jongdae groaned, calling back for his attention. When Jongin looked at him, he was hugging the toilet paper to his chest, looking pretty disappointed.

Jongin made sure to laugh at him for a good moment before they parted ways to take the tram in opposite directions.

The moment between Jongin’s eyes remaining asleep and awakening was blurred by the identical darkness he saw in either state of being.

He blinked, breathing in longly and loudly through his nose, stretching his legs until he heard and then felt a crack coming from a toe on one feet. He wasn’t awake enough to locate which foot it was yet. He turned his head to the other side, so slowly that his mind was already falling back into slumber before his body even stopped moving.

He listened to the darkness around him for a moment, heard no sound. But his eyes seemed to have heard something, they opened on their own accord, fluttering between blurriness and blindness for a while, until they caught something to hang onto and snapped wide open, so hard Jongin almost heard his eyelashes ripping apart from each other.

Or maybe that was only the abruptness in the breath he sucked in, so fast it felt like icy wind rather than the air in his room.

Across from him, on the other side of the room, stood a silhouette traced by darkness. Jongin blinked and the darkness was gone. In its stead, stood a figure he had seen so many times without truly seeing it. His eyes quaked in a fury of blinks. The stranger from the store, from the tram stop, from the aggressive dog. He was seeing him properly now, with his big eyes and the hair pushed back and his crinkled forehead. That was all Jongin could see but he could see it well and he felt nailed to his bed, felt like he wasn’t in his bed, felt like he’d been thrown out of his own body, felt like something else had replaced him and he was hammered to the background.

All he could control was his eyes. He blinked, blinked, quickly, until he saw more black than anything else, until the jerking of his breathing felt like a continuous line and nothing in him was right anymore. He blinked and blinked and blinked until he grew dizzy and the wobbliness in his fingers dipped into his chest and he couldn’t open his eyes anymore.

In the darkness of his own head, Jongin could still hear his breathing like everything else was just white noise, like his breathing was racing against everything else for attention, like everything else was distorted into slow-motion. Like every gulp of air going down his throat was frozen by fear and accumulating in the pit of his stomach, heavy, crushing parts of his body into instability on their way down.

When Jongin opened his eyes again, it was to nothingness. Nothing he didn’t know. Just his room, his closet, his desk, the pile of clothes standing on his chair, his jacket draped on the back of it. No more stranger. No one standing anymore.

He noticed his hands had each been clinging onto the opposite arm. His fingers hurt a little when he unclenched them and let go. He couldn’t feel pain on his arms. He couldn’t feel anything much but the soreness in his chest from breathing too much, too fast.

He dropped his hands, couldn’t turn his head away from where he’d seen the stranger. Or what he thought had been the stranger. There was no one, nothing. Maybe it had been just a shadow. A human being didn’t just vanish into thin air, didn’t enter a closed off room with no sound.

Nothing. No one. Just Jongin and a silly nightmare or a silly illusion induced by the lack of sleep.

Slowly, he turned to grab his phone on his nightstand. 4:03. He’d only slept an hour. He hadn’t cried, tonight, but he’d been too preoccupied by how bad he was feeling to let himself sleep properly.

But now, his eyes could barely keep open, eyelids exhausted by the panic in every single blink until that moment. He put his phone next to his pillow, dropped his head on the cushiness, and threw his body into slumber.

The next time Jongin saw the stranger, it wasn’t in the midst of his room’s shadows but in the middle of a thankfully not crowded tram stop. He was sitting, quietly waiting for his train since he was out of hi’d left home early, when he saw the guy coming in from the left and stopping to stand a few steps away from him.

Still the same hoodie. Or maybe not. This one looked a little darker. Maybe it actually wasn’t always the same hoodie but just very similar ones.

It was weird. He saw this man everywhere he went, almost. Always around tram stops. It was even weirder since last night. Jongin had dreamed of him, or had hallucinated him — it had felt much less pleasant than a dream was supposed to feel. Maybe it had been sleep paralysis but whenever that happened, Jongin saw terrifying inhuman figures. Last night, he was certain he’d seen this guy standing in his room. And it made no sense. It hadn’t even been a week since he’d first seen him and yet, Jongin didn’t even remember how many times he’d ran into him anymore.

He was standing right there, body weight visibly leaned mostly on one leg, hip cocked a little, hands in the pockets of his jacket. It looked thin. Jongin had a thick coat and a scarf on and he was still feeling pretty cold. Tomorrow was February’s first day. Jongin kind of wanted to talk to the guy.

Because it was odd. Maybe it was destiny, or something like that. His mother believed in destiny, always preached about it being god’s will and test whenever a minor inconvenience happened. Maybe this really was it. That was the only way to explain how it was possible for him to see the same person so often in such a big, crowded, and messy city, even if Jongin didn’t particularly believe in such things as destiny or god’s will.

He looked down, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He couldn’t really just accost a stranger and start talking to them. He unlocked the device, opened up a game, waited for it to load. Jongin had never been good at talking with strangers anyway, it was a wonder after the number of parties he’d gone to. He pressed on the level he’d left the game at, selected his character, the goofy snow monster, and waited for the screen to load again.

He wasn’t sure what he’d talk about anyway, telling someone that you saw them during last night’s sleep paralysis wasn’t really the best conversation starter. He scrunched his nose when he saw that he had to free gummy bears from under rocks and candies again then started swiping away. He really had no idea how people managed to make friends out of strangers so instantly. Jongdae was pretty good at that. Jongin was pretty sure he’d fail this level. He already had only seventeen swipes left.

"You’re still playing that game?"

With a startle that cost him an inefficient swipe, Jongin looked up to his left. He was sitting next to him now.

Jongin stared at him for a blank moment. He didn’t look scary. He hadn’t looked scary last night either, he’d just _felt_ scary. But from this close, he was anything but frightening. His eyebrows looked really nice above his eyes, for some reason.

"Yeah," he blurted out, late or not. He wasn’t sure because the guy hadn’t moved a single eyelash since Jongin had started looking at him. Then, he realized the tone he had used, pretty mocking. Jongin suddenly felt very attacked for his god tier gaming taste. "Only the elite knows Candy Crush is timeless."

Surely, this wasn’t something to say to a literal stranger, Jongin thought, but what he saw wasn’t a weirded out expression. Just smile breezing by his face.

"We’re both part of it then," he said, adjusting his hood with one hand so it fell correctly over the back of his jacket. "I used to play it until very recently."

Jongin hadn’t met a single person who still played Candy Crush in months. All his friends made fun of him for still playing it instead of whatever newest game was in trend. He let his hand and his phone rest on his lap, gaze never straying away from the man. College boy. He didn’t look much older than Jongin, just a little bit maybe. In the way he was holding himself. Jongin couldn’t tell what it was exactly, maybe the long pushed up hair, the very low voice, or the pretty buff arms. He didn’t look at them, refocused on the guy’s face.

"Why did you stop then?" he asked and the realization that he’d been holding a conversation with a stranger for more than ten seconds was oddly satisfying. Usually it didn’t go farther than someone asking him what time it was or if he wanted something to drink or what his name was and then his origins.

"I lost my phone," the guy said, shrugging his shoulders, hands still in his pockets.

"Oh," was all Jongin thought to say. "That sucks." Just like Jongin’s abilities to behave like himself around someone he didn’t know. He always turned into a much smaller person around strangers. "You don’t have a phone then, right now."

"Nope." He made that word sound so casual. Jongin would’ve pronounced it with tears on his face, probably, if he’d been in his shoes. "But it’s kinda liberating not to have anyone to call or tell you what to do or ask where you are." He said this while looking ahead of him instead of at Jongin, head tilting to each side with each thing he listed.

Jongin understood. Sometimes he wished he lost his phone too, there were too many people to answer to and not answering them would make him feel guilty so he never lasted more than a few hours.Two at most. And then everything piled up and he spent two more hours talking to people and it ended up exhausting him.

But he wasn’t sure a stranger cared to hear about that so he looked down at his phone, saw the glowing candy, a help from the game since he’d stayed immobile too long.

"I’ve been trying to pass this level since last night." Staying quiet would be weird now that the conversation was on so he guessed falling back to the original, most casual topic ever was the best thing to do. "I’m kinda struggling."

The stranger leaned to look at his phone and Jongin held it out for him by reflex.

"Oh, yeah," he said, pulling away with a crinkle on his chin. "I think I recall this one. It took me days to pass it."

"You passed it?" Jongin repeated, a little offended. He’d really been at this level for days and he was very close to uninstalling the game altogether.

"Yeah," he said, word elongated, widened by the smile he was displaying. It looked very satisfied in the width and the shape and its reflection that reached his eyes. Tiny gleams in the pupils. "Want me to do it for you?"

Jongin raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. "You would?" He wasn’t sure he’d trust a stranger with his phone. Not in this city. And people in this city weren’t usually nice enough to come up to you and ask if you needed help passing a difficult level on the game you played.

"No." It came with the same tone as earlier. Maybe this time, it sounded even more self-satisfied. "You gotta learn to get over everything by yourself in this world."

Jongin remained speechless for a moment, unsure if those words matched the light tone they were pronounced with, unsure if this man had just called him incompetent and too dependent on the people around him.

Then, he laughed, just a soundless sound, the beginning of a laugh that didn’t complete itself. Jongin laughed along, just because it came naturally and he was relieved that this guy hadn’t suddenly turned into an asshole. He was just beginning to like the concept of _stranger._

A bell chimed in-between them and the stranger looked to the left.

"I guess that’s your tram." He stood up then, looked down at Jongin with a smile. The sun shone behind him, he was shadowing Jongin whose neck felt very uncomfortable as he looked up at him. He was very tall, he noticed for the first time, and he was just as pleasant to look at even with the sun behind him. "Have a nice day then."

He pulled his hand out of his pocket for the first time, giving Jongin half a wave before turning around and walking away in a leisurely pace. He walked with a barely existing sway to his hips and shoulders, like he had not a single care in the world.

Jongin remained sitting as the tram slowed down to a stop in front of him, gaze following the guy. It was still very odd, even after that conversation he hadn’t had the courage to start.

Maybe the guy had noticed him everywhere too and thought the same thing. Destiny or a funny coincidence. A streak of funny coincidences. Jongin stood up and stepped into the tram, not bothering to look for a seat and just resting his back against the door on the opposite side of the wagon. That guy was always around tram stops but Jongin had never seen him get inside one. He wondered if he was one of the many homeless in this city. But he looked way too clean to be.

Jongin unlocked his phone and stubbornly tried to get himself out of that level without anyone’s help.

2:17

Jongin’s bed companion was once again sadness. Or maybe it was his body’s companion and not his bed’s. His bed felt comfortable but his body felt stuffed whole with uneasiness, tiring out even his eyelids, turning his blinks drowsy but never allowing them a single minute of rest.

2:25

He couldn’t sleep. His phone was running out of battery. He sat up, reached behind him and flicked the switch above his bed to turn the light on without hesitation. There was no sleep to scare away with the lights. He plugged his phone and rested his back against the wall. It was uncomfortable. He waited an entire minute before tugging his pillow up to save his back from the harshness.

He scrolled his messenger app, scrolled his instagram’s messaging page, scrolled the conversation names on the phone’s texting app itself.

2:39

He would like to know why he felt sad. He wanted to know. He wanted to ask himself. He dropped his phone on his lap then dropped his hand on top of it. That wasn’t enough to crush the frustration he felt. He breathed it out loudly through his nose, staining the air with anger. He breathed it right back in and it was useless.

He looked ahead, eyes catching his reflection’s gaze. He saw only half of his face from where he was sitting, on the mirror stuck to his closet’s door.

He looked like shit. His dark circles had only gotten darker along the days and his entire face looked positively murderous whenever he thought about his body’s rejection of sleep.

2:42

He laid back down on his side. His pillow was crooked. He lifted the weight sitting atop his ear, adjusted the pillow correctly, then laid himself back down, more comfortably this time. His ear was starting to hurt, weirdly, as if he’d been laying on the side of his head too much. He hadn’t even gotten a drop of sleep since night had fallen, it made no sense.

He took a deep breath in, cut it in half to release it right away. It didn’t fit inside of him, there was already too much inside of him. Too much of what? He didn’t know.

It felt like too much, too much for him, like he was disappearing with every missing hour of sleep, like he was all alone now that slumber never wanted him anymore.

2:47

But he _was_ alone. Who would he even share this with? He didn’t feel like sharing it with anyone he knew. And what would he even share? What was there to share? He was just sad and he couldn’t sleep and that made him sadder and that didn’t even happen only at night anymore but constantly. Appearances and disappearances, unannounced, in the middle of class, in the middle of a laugh he shared with his friends, in the time it took him to finish a glass of water.

He didn’t know why.

2:53

He didn’t know why. He crossed his arms against his chest, changed to hold one of his arms with the other hand instead, scratched his skin and left his fingers digging there.

3:00

He didn’t know why. He dug his finger deeper into his skin. He didn’t feel anything under his nails, under his finger pads. Just skin. No dejection, no distaste, no sign of trouble in his flesh, nothing that would explain why he felt sick in the soul. Like something was very, very wrong. Why was sadness even wrong? He didn’t want it to be bad. He wanted to meet it and embrace it and then let it leave. But it never left and it was starting to be too long and stifling and Jongin didn’t know why, just why he was feeling the way he was feeling.

3:12

He felt soaked in it. Not water. Desolation. Not clear. Dark and tenacious and sullying and impossible to wash away. Ink. It was inked into him.

3:16

He closed his eyes. Maybe if Jongin dug deep enough into his skin, into his bones, he’d find the reason. Maybe he’d find it bleeding and expanding in him and maybe he’d be able to change its course and make it bleed out of him.

3:32

His eyes opened. Nothing. Nothing but ignorance.

"What do you wanna drink?"

"Coffee," was the only word Jongin had the strength to utter.

He slid his coins into the machine’s slot and pressed on his favorite. Caramel flavored.

"What time is it?" Lisa asked, looking down at her phone to answer herself. "We have five minutes."

"That shitty class can wait until I get my coffee."

Jongin looked away from the filling cup to Lucas instead. He was in a bad mood. He really disliked both the class they’d just gotten out of ten minutes ago and the class they were to suffer through in five minutes.

The machine beeped and Jongin carefully pulled the cup out of its grip. It was foamy and smelled like caramel. He should definitely be happy.

Lucas gestured at Mark to get his coffee first. Jongin hadn’t seen him this whole week because he’d been sick and unable to attend classes. But he was back and better now. He should definitely be happy.

He sipped on his coffee, felt his hands warming up around the cup. It burned a little. He didn’t move his hands away.

"I hope today’s poems will be less shitty," Mark said as he contemplated what button to press.

"Hurry," Lucas whined, pushing on his shoulder, hard enough for Mark to budge a little. He hated class but he hated being late to class even more. Lisa laughed at their bickering. Jongin really should be happy.

He took another sip.

Mark let out a victoriously happy sound when his card payment was accepted by the machine. It usually was faulty. He often had to try at least two times for coffee machines to register the payment.

Lucas snorted and Lisa followed along. She was looking down at her phone, holding her coffee in another hand, typing a message with a smile.

Jongin wasn’t happy but he wasn’t sad either and that middle ground, empty of anything, sucked.

"I don’t know if any poem can ever be not shitty," she replied, tucking her phone in the pocket of her brown coat.

Jongin liked this coat. It suited her a lot and he found her adorable whenever she wore it. Because it was Lisa’s favorite coat and she always had an amazingly cozy day whenever she wore it.

"Poems suck, why can’t we just study actual books," Mark grumbled as he struggled to take his coffee out.

Lucas was watching him like a hawk, ready to make fun of him for ten entire minutes if even a single drop jumped out of the cup.

"I think this semester’s poems are much better than last semester’s actually," Lucas said, finally stepping in front of the machine with a theatrically relieved throw of his hands into the air. "I even found one of them fun last week."

That was huge coming from someone who despised this class and the teacher. Jongin quite liked him, he always put so much emotion into his poem readings. It was a pleasant surprise for Lucas to say that. He really, really should be happy.

"Well, I sure didn’t."

"You were barely even listening," Lisa’s voice cracked a little because of the cold. She snorted at Mark who immediately mocked her by repeating her words in a very cheesy, broken tone.

Lisa feigned stepping on his foot and he almost spilled his coffee. They all chortled. He should laugh too. Joyfully. Heartily.

But he didn’t. He wasn’t feeling any of that. He should but he couldn’t. Just why wasn’t he feeling happy? Knowing the answer would make him much, much happier. But he wasn’t happy.

He took a big sip of coffee to conceal the lack of smile as they laughed. Lucas met his gaze then and as Jongin lowered his cup, he distorted the lower part of his face into a smile. He’d stayed quiet too long. He didn’t want anyone to notice he wasn’t truly there despite his body following them along wherever they went.

"Olivia doesn’t take this class, right?" he asked, even if he already knew the answer.

"Nope, she was too late and couldn’t enroll into this class so she takes the one that takes place tomorrow," Lisa said and Jongin hummed.

As soon as Lucas got his coffee, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and belched an _ugh._

"Let’s go before we it gets too late," he said and Jongin was grateful to follow along.

Walking made everyone less focused on each other. Even that wasn’t enough to cheer him up.

Jongin’s blanket was the main occupant of his bed, primary against him. He was a small ball of moodiness under it, he couldn’t take much room.

It was warm under his blanket, felt like a hug around every centimeter of his skin, affability seeping into him with each brush of his bare torso against the effulgent fabric whenever he moved a little bit. It felt like a comfort, like a clasp so accepting it could engulf him whole and he would never complain.

And yet, he didn’t feel at ease. It was early, barely past midnight, much earlier compared to his usual sleeping time nowadays, but he had a feeling his night would be short this time too. He really wanted to sleep. He missed sleeping. He rubbed a hand over his face, brought it up to his hair, scratched his scalp until it started burning under the destructiveness of his touch. He’d always been an early sleeper and an early riser. That felt like a lifetime ago. He wanted that life back. He hated this one.

He wrapped himself tighter with his blanket. He suddenly really wanted to cry but this time, he knew exactly why. He just wanted to sleep. Just sleep. Why couldn’t he just sleep like a normal human being? He wanted to sleep.

He tucked himself in properly, tried to loosen his body, squeezed his eyes shut, then felt a different kind of weight settling on top of him. Not heavy. Not even there. A feeling, light as an additional layer of clothing on a freezing evening and just as effective. Like a tighter hug. His body mellowed out, legs not holding the blanket as tightly anymore, but the sensation didn’t go away. He breathed out longly through his nose, rubbed his cheek against his pillow to mould its shape into the cushiness.

He felt better, weirdly, hugged, held together. He still didn’t feel at ease, not really, but it was a little better. Just a little better, enough for him not to want to open his eyes again. They remained closed on their own, held by drowsiness.

Before he fell asleep, Jongin thought that maybe he’d found the hack. Maybe he just had to make his blanket hug him to fall asleep properly.

Jongin stood in front of the parting doors, pursed his lips when he saw that the wagon was already crowded enough and getting unbearably crowded as more people got in, stepped back, and watched the doors closing again with difficulty. It took two tries for them to lock. Someone had their bag squished against the doors and it made them refuse to close properly. He waited for the tram to drive away before getting his phone out.

He’d wait for the next one. He stepped back until he felt the edge of the bench against the back of his legs and then plopped down on it with a groan that sounded too old for how young his body was. He swiped around on his phone for a bit before opening up his mails to see what was the poem of the day. Subscribing to that website was one of his best decisions ever. It gave him a new poem to read every day, sometimes made him discover writers he ended up adoring.

Someone sat down next to him but Jongin didn’t pay attention, focused on reading what seemed to be an old kind of English, a bit more difficult to understand than usual.

"I like that poem."

Jongin looked up to his left and this time, he wasn’t as startled to see that dark brown hoodie. He’d heard him coming, just hadn’t thought it would be him again. Weird. Really weird.

"You also seem to like spying on people’s phone." Weird. Jongin being able to say this was even weirder.

The guy laughed, looking away from Jongin with the short-lived sound before looking back at him once he quietened down. A human being looking away and then back at him again shouldn’t seem so captivating. He had a nice smile. A nice profile. A nice nose. It all came together in one of the most highest attractions Jongin had ever experienced. He didn’t even enjoy rollercoasters.

"Yeah, I’m a pretty good spy." Funny how whatever he said, he always sounded so proud of himself. Maybe it was the large ears that made him look goofier than he probably was. Someone who dressed in such dark colors was usually not that goofy. But everyone dressed in dark colors so maybe not.

Jongin laughed through his nose, airy and quiet. He looked down at his phone, unsure what to say for a moment. This wasn’t a stranger anymore, stopping a conversation abruptly would make him look rude or uninterested and Jongin was neither.

"You seem to really like poems though." Jongin looked at him with raised eyebrows. A shrug was given to him. "I’ve seen you read them last time too."

"It’s for school," was Jongin’s automatic response. This actually was still a stranger. If Jongin didn’t trust his friends not to make fun of him, he would certainly not trust a stranger either.

"I see," he said, word lulled by the nod of his head.

Jongin looked at him for a moment, unable to tell what was behind that reaction. Then, his eyebrows furrowed with realization.

"Wait," he said, looking down at his phone. If he’d been sitting beside Jongin for a while then he’d read the poem and said that he liked it. "You understand English?" he asked, looking back up at him as he locked his phone. That was when he realized how dramatic that question was.

He snorted, making a face at him. "Yeah? I even took german in middle and high school and aced it. What are you trying to say?" he asked but while Jongin realized how offending his question could’ve been, the guy was only leaning closer to him and elongating his last word casually. Maybe it was amusement or teasing or something along those lines. He couldn’t tell.

"Sorry," he said, adding a sheepish strain to his voice. "It’s just that everyone around me sucks at English and this was a pretty difficult poem so…" he trailed off, perfectly aware that he still sounded pretty rude, perhaps even condescending. But french people sucked at languages. Jongin had taken German for six years and barely even knew how to introduce himself. This was Old English and the guy had understood it enough to make out the fact that it was a poem rather than plain text.

"Well, I love languages. It’s the only subject I loved in school," he said, looking to his left when a bell chimed from that direction.

"I’m glad then," Jongin said,following his gaze. "I should take this tram or else I’m gonna be late," he said, mumbling through the regret of not having the time to even ask the guy what he was studying, or his name.

"Yeah, go ahead," he said, gesturing towards the tram when it peeked its head in front of them.

He remained sitting and Jongin stood in front of him for a moment. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Even if he had a feeling they would se each other again, maybe it would be weird to say something like _see you next time._ They weren’t supposed to see each other next time, nor this much.

Instead, he smiled at him and turned around, waiting for the doors to open. As the tram departed, the guy remained at the stop once again.

"This class isn’t actually that bad," Olivia hummed, reaching for her cup of coffee.

She threw her head back, probably to attain the last few drops of it. Jongin only had ice cubes left in his cup so he didn’t even bother. Iced tea was his first choice no matter the time of the year.

"It’s just a lot of information that you have to look up on your own after class," Jongin admitted, finishing up the last sentence he was writing. "That's what makes it very hellish."

They’d decided to meet up at this little café to go over the classes Jongin had sent her the other day, because he didn’t want to just send her his notes and let her drown in it. That would be counterproductive, and he also grabbed the occasion to start making a revision sheet for this class so it benefitted them both anyway. They’d been pretty good at working together, like usual, and he was sincerely glad that she seemed to feel way less crushed by school at the moment.

The group of noisy high school students that had arrived fifteen minutes earlier with a baggage of disruptment finally left and the café seemed much quieter all of a sudden. Jongin didn’t understand why they’d come to a café if it was to stay a mere fifteen minutes, make a lot of noise, disturb everyone working, and then leave.

"That’s something I’ll never understand," Olivia said, voice falling to a lower register now that it was quieter around them. She was sorting the notes she had printed into a neat pile. "If all they’re gonna do is direct us to books and articles and make us look up information they don’t explain in class then what’s the use of actually attending class?"

Jongin sighed. "I guess they just like torturing us," he said, scrunching his mouth. There was so many things wrong about the education they were given and no matter how much he tried to be understanding with the system and the teachers, it still was pretty shitty to be in a student’s shoes.

"Well, thanks for making the torture less torturous," Olivia said then, giving him a smile that Jongin returned with an additional shake of his head. She’d already thanked him close to five times in the past two hours they’d spent together.

"Friends torture you but they’re also here to do the contrary sometimes, you know," he said, extracting laughter out of her.

Someone walked past their table with a fresh cup of hot chocolate in hand and Jongin tasted the sweetness of it in the way she shortly pated his hand with hers, gratefulness beaming in her smile. It felt great to see contentment on her face rather than stressed lines. It made him feel incredibly happy to be part of what made that change happen in her.

"I couldn’t do this without you and you know I’m here to help you too when you need it, right?" Jongin nodded. He truly knew it. In some ways, he knew it. She lit her phone up with a finger and pursed her lips then. "But I gotta run to work now. Gotta get rich and stuff."

Jongin chortled as she started putting her stuff into her bag. He looked at his computer screen for a moment then hummed.

"I’ll come down with you to get another drink, I’m gonna stay a bit more and then probably go to the bookstore or something." It was right next door, Jongin couldn’t miss the occasion of going to a bookstore when he was so close to it.

"Okay but don’t buy too many books," she threatened him with an overly chiding tone.

"I’m not Lisa," Jongin huffed as they both stood up. Last time they’d went together, she’d bought a grand total of ten books. Fortunately most of them were second-hand and very cheap.

He grabbed his phone and his wallet and looked around once before following her. He didn’t really fear for his stuff, everyone around was working on something save for that one duo of middle aged women who were conversing quietly.

They went downstairs, where the counter was, almost running into someone on their way upstairs. They all laughed sheepishly and continued on their own way. The café was small, way too small on its ground floor but much bigger on the first floor, it could fit quite a number of people and was equipped with plugs and comfortable seats that maximized productivity. Jongin liked coming there to work, whether it be alone or accompanied by his friends. Jongdae was the only one who didn’t like studying in cafés and preferred the school library but they didn’t really have occasions to study together anyway, they had different majors and schedules. Jongdae was an impressive man who’d chosen to go down the psychology route.

He bid goodbye to Olivia and stood in front of the counter, wondering what he wanted to drink while the baristas took care of someone else’s order. He settled on ordering the same thing again, an iced, blackcurrant-flavored tea. He hadn’t tried many of the others tea on the menu but he just knew this one was the best drink the café had to offer. Even if he feared his throat would start to hurt by the end of his second round.

He went back up with his drink and was relieved to find that nothing was missing from his table. He sat back down and considered all the work he’d done. While he had mostly gone over everything with Olivia, it had still helped him revise last semester’s classes and the classes they’d had since the beginning of the semester. He’d done enough work. He took a sip of his sweet drink, put a little order on the table, pushed his computer back a little so that he had more room to rest his arms on the table, closed off his class notes, then opened up his browser instead.

He searched for funny shows to watch on Netflix. Comedy. It made everyone laugh, made everyone happy for the duration of the joke. He scrolled through the comedy section, bookmarked the few shows that seemed interesting enough for him and then passed on to the movies, doing the same thing. He didn’t have class up until the afternoon tomorrow, he could afford to stay up without forcing himself to sleep if he couldn’t. He could just quiet down his laughter, instead of anything else, just for this once. That would make such a nice change.

"Hey," a voice called out to him then and before Jongin even had time to raise his gaze from the screen, the chair across from him was being pulled back. The zipper of his jacket crashed a strident sound against the table as he dropped on the chair.

Jongin looked at him for a silent moment. Once again, Jongin looked at someone he saw more than he saw Jongdae in the span of two weeks. Too often. It was happening too often and while it was intriguing, Jongin was starting to wonder if there was something weird going on here. This stranger had accosted him a grand total of three times now and had acted like they weren’t strangers every time. Being comfortable with strangers was one thing, treating them like a casual friend was another. Jongin wasn’t sure whether the guy was just someone who made friends very easily anymore.

He put his drink down, leaned forward.

"Are you stalking me?" he asked in all seriousness, voice calm and head even calmer. Maybe Jongin should start to panic.

The guy hummed a sound, bopped his head for a moment, and then tilted it.

"I’m not," he replied and Jongin might be too naive but it still came as a silly kind of relief. "Maybe we’re just linked by destinations."

Linked be destinations. Destiny. Jongin might be too naive again, but it was reassuring to hear the thought that had crossed his mind a few times coming out of this guy’s mouth.

"Maybe," he replied, grabbing his drink and sipping at the coldness.

He looked down at the other’s hands, they were linked on top of the table, he was leaning forward a little bit. There was no drink. He wondered if he’d been in this café since a while ago and had already finished drinking. Jongin hadn’t see him but he hadn’t really properly looked around either, way too focused on doing good with his notes and the help he was supposed to give.

"Who’s the girl you were with?" he abruptly asked and Jongin, who’d been staring at the mole on the slope of his nose the whole time, was startled by his voice. Not enough for his body to make it visible, fortunately.

It was just a sudden question. Weirdly, it was a sudden question that he wanted to answer.

"A friend," he started, clearing his throat a little and putting his glass down. He wiped the condensation of his fingers on the sleeve of his other arm. He should take a break, he didn’t want to lose his voice because of something as stupid as a café’s tastiest cold beverage. "We were studying together but she left for work." A loud thumb came from the table on the left. The young woman sitting there had dropped her phone on the table. He realized then, that he too had the right to ask questions. "Are you a college student? What’s your major?"

He leaned back into his chair, hand moving closer to Jongin’s computer.

"Nope." His hair was always styled the same way. There never was a single difference. Jongin focused on his clothes then. A dark green hoodie. Different. At least, that was different. "I stopped going to school after graduating high school. She thanked you quite a few times. Are you that good at studying?"

He’d been here a while then, listening. Or hearing. Jongin wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure whether he found this creepy or not. He was pretty sure he’d find it weirder if the guy didn’t have such a charming face.

"No, she was just struggling a little with class so I helped her," he said, hand reaching to pull the lid of his computer down and close it. It felt intruding between them, like a barrier. The guy said nothing, merely continued looking at him. He’d just hummed at the end of Jongin’s sentence, once. It made Jongin feel like he had more things to say. "I was a little sad, actually," he confessed, looking down, scratching the side of his neck with two fingers. "It was really hard for her and she was lacking behind. I felt like she completely gave up on that class and I didn’t want that to happen to her."

"Maybe that’s just the way things were supposed to be," he said, calling back for Jongin’s attention that had fallen on the finger he was tracing the edge of his computer with. "Sometimes when it’s hard, you just have to give up. That’s what’s meant to happen, sometimes," he said, parting his hands in an illustrative gesture and tying them together again once he was done speaking.

Jongin didn’t like that way of thinking. "Or maybe she just needed a little help. A little push," he asserted, the shrug of his shoulders softening his words.

The guy hummed. He seemed to do that a lot.

"Did I interrupt your studying then?" he asked, eyebrows furrowing a little. It was really a little but it looked like a lot on his face, Jongin couldn’t explain why.

"No, not at all," he reassured the other. He didn’t want him to think he was a disturbance when he was nothing but an intriguingly appreciated presence. "I was just searching for shows to watch tonight."

"On Netflix?" he asked, always asked. He hummed and asked questions. That was all he seemed to be doing. Jongin didn’t hate it. He nodded and once his head was done moving, there was a smile on the other’s face. The dimple on his cheek made up for the fact that it was a crooked smile. "I’m a show expert."

And Jongin found out that not only did he have a lot of knowledge about Netflix shows but he also had similar taste to his. He recommended him a few shows that he found funny and Jongin had seen the names while searching but they hadn’t jumped out to him. He made sure to bookmark them, this guy had a way of making everything sound like the best thing ever. It didn’t even make Jongin want to contradict him, he just wanted to listen to him. He really needed advice, maybe.

After the long list of recommendations given to him, Jongin asked about what other kinds of shows he watched and found out that they’d watched a lot of same ones. It felt great to finally have someone to gush about _Mindhunter_ with. Not a single one of his friends had watched it despite Jongin having talked about it for days after finishing it. He was also glad to realize that he wasn’t the only one to see that there had been some twisted kind of sexual tension between Holden and Edmund on that last episode. He hadn’t even been the one to mention it first. That allowed Jongin to know the other’s views on homosexuality, even if maybe it was a bit too farfetched. Jongin spent way more times questioning people’s views on sexuality than questioning his own sexual orientation. It didn’t matter that much to him.

By the time they parted ways, when Jongin realized that it was getting late and he wanted to avoid crowded trams, he was pretty sure this guy wasn’t a stranger anymore.

_Did you read that damn book?_

Jongin paused the show he was watching when he saw his phone light up from where it was resting on the mattress. It was pretty funny. It was a pretty nice suggestion he’d gotten. He groaned as he reached to grab it and read Mark’s message.

_Which damn book? Every book we have to read is damned,_ he replied, even if he didn’t really mean it. Some of them were really, really interesting. And he knew they all thought the same way, they wouldn’t have started their second year in a literary major otherwise, but reading so many books all the time still made these books seem a little damned.

_I dont even know which book we have to read next_

Jongin thought for a moment, just a short moment, before another text popped up on his screen, without leaving him the occasion to find the answer.

_Wanna play fortnite?_

Jongin snorted. That was typical Mark behavior, talking about how much homework they had to do and then starting a game in the next second. In typical Jongin manner, he started typing his enthusiastic agreement but before he could finish his rows of exclamation marks, a knock called him to the door that opened without waiting for an answer.

Jongin sat up and pushed the laptop away from his lap when he saw his father’s glasses reflecting light for a second before revealing the flatness in the roundness of his eyes.

"Hello," he said, voice lower than the ground. Flat and steady.

Everything about his father felt flat. The shirt he was wearing, buttoned up to the neck, the thin rectangular glasses, the straight line his lips never strayed from even when he was supposed to be smiling.

"Hey," Jongin said, clearing his throat a little at the rustiness of that word. It was the iced tea. He cleared his throat once more when he heard his father do the same thing. He waited for his first question.

"How you doing?" he asked, in that very awkward voice, with the rise at the end of his sentence.

He didn’t know why that one sentence never sounded dull. It wasn’t anything that brought reassurance or relief, it wasn’t a pleasant or appreciated change. It didn’t really feel like one.

"Great," Jongin said, sitting up even more so he could fold his legs and cross them. No word was uttered throughout the whole change of position. This silence didn’t make him feel like he had more things to say. It made him realize that he really had nothing to say. "Watching a show," he added, nodding his head towards the computer screen.

His father hummed. Jongin could only see his head, the rest of his body was hidden behind the door. He hadn’t even stepped into the room. Jongin didn’t know whether that made him feel better about this interaction or not. But he was used to it, at least that. He was also used to the second question, the one yet to come.

"How’s class?" it came, not abruptly but with the same stiffness as a wall. Jongin had long stopped trying to climb that wall. Just getting even halfway up would be good enough. For him.

"It’s alright," he answered, turning his phone over and over again in his hands.

"Your mother told me you’re not talking about your grades."

Jongin licked his lower lip. "They didn’t return any grade yet. You know they always take too long." He shifted. His bed wasn’t his bed anymore. It was a very comfortless, very cold interrogation chair.

"Are you sure?"

Jongin stopped fiddling with his phone. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore, couldn’t feel much of his body. The glasses widened his father’s eyes, made them too big, and Jongin felt insignificant against the weight of his gaze.

"Why would I lie?" he asked, keeping his voice level because he didn’t want his father to think he was offended and then get offended by the fact that Jongin was offended.

"Right," he said, pulling away, half of his face disappearing behind the door. "Do well. Dinner’s almost ready," was all Jongin heard before the door closed.

It got easier to breathe then. He didn’t have to control the loudness of his breathing or the speed of it. He didn’t know why he did that whenever he talked to his father, but he did. It was a physical addition to the mental exhaustion that talking to him already was.

His legs were starting to hurt from being kept folded too long. He looked at his screen. It hadn’t even had the time to darken, their conversation hadn’t even lasted long enough for the device to fall asleep. And yet, Jongin felt like his body had been constricted for ages in his father’s voice, nailed to each of those four narrow walls.

He looked at the book laying open on his left. He wanted to read that poem. He’d read it once before starting his show. He read the words _Demain dès l’aube_ , but didn’t get farther than that title.

Instead, he typed a _maybe later_ to Mark, grabbed his laptop, leaned back into his pillow, and balanced it between his crossed legs. His nail scratched against the trackpad when his hand jerked to it too abruptly. He opened up the notes for one of today’s classes and decided to study a little at least until dinner time.

Jongin turned into a last breath when he stepped out of the door. Regretful. Abandoned. Exhausted. Agonizingly slow. Spit out by a building he had no room in anymore.

The doors closed behind him with a loud clung. He looked up at the stars above him, saw none of them, looked down at his feet until the tip of his nose started crystalizing into ice, turned around and looked through the glass doors. There was still a couple playing at the arcades, the boy was hugging the girl from behind while teaching her how to shoot a ball into the net of that basketball machine. Whatever it was called.

He took a deep breath in, turned around, faced the stairs, and blew it out through his mouth. Condensation puffed out of him in a wild, distorted cloud. Before Jongin could see if the last traces of his delight had flown out of him with that breath, it scattered into invisibility.

He went down the stairs and got out of the parking lot, walking towards the tram stop a few minutes away from where he was. He shoved his fingers into his pockets but it was too late, he already couldn’t feel his fingers anymore from the cold. He’d hurt himself just a little bit when he’d tried throwing Lucas’ much heavier ball just for the laughs. It had ended up being a gutter ball, with no mercy. Jongin had brought both that and the laughter of his friends upon himself. He had no regret. He’d been ecstatic in that moment.

It had been a fun night. They’d eaten dinner at Burger King together, then had gone to this establishment full of games and arcades. Its main point was bowling but after playing that, they’d moved on to a few games of billiards. Jongin was pretty good at it, it enraged Lisa’s competitive spirit. Mark had looked very funny while trying to teach Olivia how to play, leaning behind her and everything. Olivia hadn’t complained and to be quite honest, Jongin thought she wasn’t as bad as she showed herself to be.

He walked right past the tram stop without looking at the display screen to see when the next train was. He wanted to walk a little. He’d already been standing for a while, throughout that first billiard game. It had been fun. He’d almost won it but Lisa had crushed him by one single point. It had been very fun. He’d only drunk a bottle of beer. He’d had a lot of fun.

And then the fun had just petered out, he’d stopped laughing, stopped feeling in his place, stopped wanting to be there, in the middle of all these laughing people. He wanted to be in his bed instead. It had been sudden and gradual at the same time. Nothing had triggered it. That was the worst of it, what added a layer of frustration to the whole thing. He wished he would’ve stayed until the end. He would’ve had so much fun, he’d been having so much fun. But it hadn’t lasted long enough.

He’d stopped having fun and he didn’t want to try anymore. It had made him feel like shit. The switch from enjoyment to forcing himself made him feel like shit. The fact that he couldn’t even spend one good night made him like complete, utter shit.

So he’d left, despite his friends begging for one more game. He’d said he was tired and he hadn’t lied. He just didn’t know why he was so tired all the time. He still hadn’t been able to figure it out.

Following the tram rails, he continued walking, pulled a hand out of his pocket to tug his scarf higher over his face so it at least covered his lips and the tip of his nose as long as he didn’t move his head too much. There was something wrong with him.

He didn’t know what. It had been one of the best nights of his month until it wasn’t anymore and he wanted to cry but he was in public and he felt so slow as he walked but he couldn’t walk faster because his legs were numbed by the cold and the lack of air. He had a hard time breathing. His stomach didn’t want him to breathe, it almost felt like the air in his lungs had pierced through and solidified in his stomach and kept twisting around, trying to find an escape.

He was tired of feeling this way.

He was tired so when he saw that he was nearing the next tram stop _and_ that he had walked for probably five minutes without being ran over by a tram, he decided that he should stop walking and plopped down on the bench instead, checking the screen. Still five minutes to wait for the next tram. He adjusted his scarf again and then hid both hands in his pockets, leaned back until he felt the cold of the glass wall behind him. Two girls were standing a few steps to his right, talking amongst themselves, laughing until suddenly they started singing loudly and chortling and singing again and Jongin really regretted even waking up this morning.

At least there was no drunkard walking around. Yet. There was a drunkard at most corners of this city, especially at night. He could’ve been a drunkard himself. Maybe he should’ve been one. Maybe he should’ve drank five bottles instead of just one. He didn’t even have class tomorrow. But he’d never really believed in getting drunk. He’d never needed to be drunk to have fun and feel happy.

But he wasn’t sure he was the same person anymore. He wasn’t sure he was Jongin anymore. All he knew for sure was that now, he was-

"Tired?"

Jongin startled hard, jumping a little on the bench, enough for one of his hands to slip out of his pocket with the brusqueness of the movement. He saw the other jumping a little as well, one of his hands rising to stand in protection before the green of his hoodie. His eyes were wide, eyebrows raised, and his mouth rounded into silence.

Jongin raised his hand to press it against his chest, where he could feel his heart beating faster than it should, and that seemed to be the press that activated laughter out of him. That switched the stranger’s laugh on for a short moment, as he dropped to sit next to Jongin on the bench. It was a small one, destined to be occupied by exactly two people.

"You scaring me so often is what’s tiring," Jongin complained, words huffy with the remnants of his laughter. It was a lie. It wasn’t tiring. It was the least tiring thing in Jongin’s life nowadays.

He was taller than Jongin even while sitting down, by just a little bit. Jongin’s shoulder dug right bellow the other’s.

"At least I made you laugh," he said with a little shrug that Jongin didn’t feel against his shoulder. He was too focused on how the lights across from them traced a dimple on his cheek, one that wasn’t really there at the moment. "You looked like you needed it."

Jongin looked down to where his fingers fiddled with the zipper of his coat. He should’ve zipped it up. The night was cold.

"I’m just tired," he said, barely hearing himself when the girls a few steps away burst into loud laughter again, overpowering him. Three cars whooshed by slowly behind them before Jongin got his next words out. The stranger hadn’t said anything, kept waiting while looking at him. Jongin couldn’t feel his gaze on him, it had no pressure. "Tired of hanging out with friends."

"Why? What were you doing?" he asked, turning his body more towards Jongin, knees so close to his leg, Jongin could’ve felt them press into his skin — but he didn’t.

He thought about that question. Why?

He had to swallow his words first, pulling them down, giving them the impetus it took to get them out of his mouth.

"I don’t know. We were having fun. We played bowling and then billiards and laughed a lot." It had been fun. Somewhere inside of him, Jongin knew that it had been fun. He parted his lips, so slowly he had the time to smell the beer oozing off a man walking past in front of them with a can in his hand. "I liked being there. And then I didn’t want to be there anymore. It started being difficult. Being there." He looked back up at the guy, met his attentive gaze, tried not to look too desperate as he spoke again. "Do you ever feel that way too with your friends?"

Jongin felt like he was looking at himself when the guy parted his mouth, closed it, heard the bell chiming from the opposite side, then opened his mouth again.

"I don’t have any friends."

The strident push bringing the tram to the opposite stop petered out, ceased, and climbed back up in volume as it left.

"Oh," was the sound pushing out of Jongin, a sound he wasn’t sure the other even heard.

He looked too preoccupied, eyebrows furrowing a slight slit right above the birth of his nose, lower lip growing thinner, cheeks dulling out, eyes looking at Jongin. He wasn’t sure he was being seen, however. Even if he felt oddly more seen whenever he was talking to this boy. Because looking at this boy’s eyes wasn’t an automatism, it was a want born out of intrigue. It was a focus. Looking into this boy’s eyes made Jongin focus. Not on him, but on what Jongin tried to forget inside of himself.

A blink of the other’s eyes cut through their link but it materialized again as soon as it was gone. As if it never happened in the first place. That blink. A second blink now. Jongin’s eyes blinked thrice in the time it took the other to blink once more. He was ungrateful. Three and then one. He really was ungrateful for feeling this way. Three and then one and then a compression in his throat. He really shouldn’t feel this way when he had friends and a family and good grades and a comfortable bed to sleep in at night. Three and then one and then a prickling in his throat and then an immobility in his thoughts. But he had no sleep to spend on that bed. Four and then one and then a clamping in his throat and a wall in his head and a ballooning in his chest.

Jongin blinked and the wind’s blow on his cheek was wet. He looked down but not fast enough to miss the loosening on the other’s features.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, and Jongin didn’t know how a voice so boisterous could suddenly feel so muted. Muted for Jongin’s own good.

Jongin raised his hand, it collided with his cheek a bit too harshly, enough to wipe away the treacherous tears but not enough to slap away the shame. Crying in public. That was the only thing he hadn’t done yet and now it was done and it was done in the most humiliating way.

"I don’t know," he said and the way his voice sounded like a wail, the fact that he really didn’t know, made his shoulders quiver.

His ears picked up on two voices singing happy notes, made more joyful by the smiles shaping them. It was so obvious they were smiling. Happiness chiming so loudly, echoing in his ears. He could hear it without even looking at them. It didn’t come from him, didn’t resonate inside fo him. He wanted to curl up right under the bench.

"Why are you crying for me?"

Jongin turned his head to him. There was so much artificial light around them to counter the sun’s daily abandon, it wasn’t enough to fight against the gloom he saw on the other’s face. Jongin would love to be that voice, at this exact moment. So tiny and weak it could barely be heard.

But Jongin had heard it and it made him puff out a soaked laugh that died down right away. It wasn’t a joke. It didn’t sound as ridiculous. He realized it. He wasn’t crying for himself. He shook his head in denial, pressing his lips together despite the salty taste forcefully invading his mouth.

It faded away when all of him was collected. It felt fast. For the first time in a long while, Jongin’s body moved faster than anything as it was pulled into a sturdy hold. Even as he remained there, unmoving, clasped, chin halfway hooked on a shoulder, locked in quietude but spread into comfort, Jongin felt liberated by the slowness he eternally survived through.

It took him a moment to open his eyes. A very short moment. So short it felt like he had never even closed his eyes to begin with. His body adapted to its avalanche so quickly, before he even realized it, he was already adjusting his chin to press against the other’s shoulder rather than try and climb on top of it. He took a noisy breath in, jerky, scaring away another row of tears.

He hadn’t been hugged in so long.

It didn’t make him feel better. Not that much. It didn’t take away the fact that it was difficult to breathe, didn’t change how angry his body seemed to be with him, didn’t make him feel bigger or less miserable or less like he wanted to scream that he was sad and didn’t know why. But it made him feel a bit faster. Because someone had picked him up and he wasn’t entirely alone with his own body and everything that was inside of it.

And it felt nice. There was a coat and a scarf and a hoodie and a jacket and he could only feel arms around him. Just that. But it was the only nice thing Jongin had felt in a while. A sensation of soothing togetherness tying around him, like a bow that made things prettier, not like a rope that made things unescapable.

The realization that he was hugging a stranger cut through it in the duration it took for the echo of a bell to fade away. He was hugging a stranger. He didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to be here anymore. He shouldn’t want to be here anymore. This was embarrassing.

But his body stayed in place when the other moved away, in denial when it was stripped off the one thing it liked nowadays.

"Here’s your tram," he said, looking over his shoulder before looking down at Jongin. Gloominess gone, comfort still evident in the softness at the corners of his lips. "You should take it."

Jongin didn’t want to. Suddenly, he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay there. But that was ridiculous. As ridiculous as how regretful he was feeling for even thinking that he wanted to leave.

But he was already let go of, the embrace was already taken away from him. He looked at the arms, looked at the hands falling on the other’s lap. He should go. He didn’t want to say anything. He wanted to know just one thing.

"Can I at least know the name of the guy who just hugged me?"

Jongin wasn’t sure all these words were heard, the tram was loud as it slid in front of the stop, he was weak as he still felt the ghost of a touch he’d barely even felt while living through it.

"Chanyeol."

Korean, just like him. Smiling, unlike him.

"Jongin."

He stood up. Chanyeol remained right there. He never left.

"Get home safe, Jongin," he said and Jongin never heard that, usually. It was always _goodnight_ or _see you next time_ or anything in-between these two.

He nodded, didn’t say it back because it would be difficult to speak and he still had wetness to dry right under his eyes. He could feel the wind sticking to it.

He stepped to the train, pressed on the button to open the doors, and got in. When he turned around, inside, to hold himself on the bouquet of handles, Chanyeol was still sitting right there, still looking at him.

Jongin continued seeing him even after he was driven away, continued feeling just a tad better even once he was left alone in his wagon.

When he arrived home, his mother was still awake, watching television from where she sat on the couch. She never relaxed on that couch, always sat straight, always in the same position, always eyed Jongin with the same look whenever he got home a little too late and she was still awake to see it. Jongin wished he’d gotten home a little later.

"Where were you?" she asked, only her head turning towards Jongin, the rest of her body still facing the television like she was only half present. Jongin knew her entire attention was focused on him and solely him. It always was. It was just him and them, his parents. No one else to share the burden with.

"Out," he said at first, because he didn’t like the accusing tone she was using. Then, he sighed, took a step closer, engulfing into the living room. "We played bowling and stuff. Nothing much."

"With whom?" was her second question, this one sharpened by the narrowness of her gaze.

"I was with _friends_ ," Jongin replied, tone slipping way more into exasperation than he’d wished it to. But he felt cornered and he knew for sure he hadn’t done anything that deserved this kind of feeling being imposed on him.

She seemed to realize. She looked away from him, frowning at the television.

"I’m just worried about you, that’s all," she muttered, voice much less offensive, softened into complaints now. Jongin didn’t like this either. The justification for something that she made him feel way too often. "You have to do well."

That was the sentence Jongin despised hearing the most. He knew it. He knew it very well. He didn’t have to hear it. She didn’t have to end every single one of their conversations with it. Jongin knew it.

"I know," he said, carefully steering his voice back to a numbed sound. She’d told him so many times, he could never forget it. "I am doing well." He was. He was doing pretty well. Objectively, he was doing well. Not only with classes. Everything. He was doing well, had always done well. Would do well.

She didn’t say anything, remained silent. He could see in the way her arms were crossed that she didn’t feel comfortable. He could see in the blank look of her eyes that she didn’t feel great. Jongin could see everything in her. She never saw in him anything but what she expected to see.

"You don’t think I’m doing well?" he asked then, after a moment stretched for so long, he felt like he’d died and was reborn. Into the same exact person. Into the same exact expectations. They’d always be there.

And Jongin knew. He knew it very well, why she was doing this, why she always repeated the same thing over and over again. She didn’t want him to end like that one cousin, who’d dropped out of school and did things no one really wanted to know about. She always said that, not as often but enough for him to memorize it. He knew it wasn’t just that.

"I know," she said and it sounded sincere but wasn’t. She didn’t know what Jongin wished she knew. "It’s just my duty to remind you. You know your father. If anything happened, it would be my fault. I know you’re doing well and I trust you as long as you’re good."

Chopped sentences and thoughts Jongin didn’t need to hear entirely to understand. He’d heard them before. So many contradictions in a single sentence. That, he didn’t understand. But he didn’t try to understand, he’d long stopped trying to understand. He just did what he had to do.

He walked to her, pressed a hand on the couch, and leaned closer to her.

"I’m doing good," he said, forcefully pushing those words out of his mouth. Saying it so often made him feel like he was lying. He kissed his mother’s cheek and pulled away.

She patted his cheek with her cold hand and smiled at him. He mimicked it and wished her goodnight before leaving.

When he crashed on his bed, it felt like a pressure weighing twice as much as his own body followed along and pinned him down against the mattress. He turned to lay on his back to breathe easier. This conversation had depleted him.

He closed his eyes for a moment. He was used to this. This was okay. This was nothing new. It was almost reassuring. That this was still the way it had always been. It wasn’t reassuring at all. That it had never once changed or evolved or gotten better or disappeared entirely. This was just his life.

It was still early, still far from midnight. He could do many things. He knew he wouldn’t fall asleep right now even if he tried. He could do many things, read, listen to music, watch a show, a movie, think about stuff.

He sat up and decided to read over his class notes a little bit. He had to do well.

He had to do well so he started Saturday by doing his homework first thing in the morning.

He skipped breakfast until it was almost lunch time, worked and memorized until his head was starting to hurt a little bit and only then did he get up and prepare himself something to eat. His mother was gone, she was out with some friends. He vaguely remembered her telling him while he was working and only humming his response.

After eating something, he jumped back in his bed and lazed around by scrolling around on his phone, watching a few videos from cute animal accounts, reading a few articles about whatever was trending on the internet.

He pushed himself out of bed an hour later, neatened his cover to sit on top of it and dragged his laptop towards him. He read the texts he was given to read for next week’s classes, searched all the words he didn’t understand, made sure to get whatever imagery or symbolism was hidden amongst the lines. Once he was done, he scrolled around the internet a little more, wasted a bit of time on social media. He did a bit of research on Harlem Renaissance after seeing it being mentioned in an article somewhere. It was a shame they were only taught about French literary movements at school. Other countries were only mentioned if they’d gone through the same movement or were related to the study subject. After making himself a small list of books to possibly buy or find at the school library, he decided to do something less intelligent.

He wasted a bit more time looking up villas in Mexico then comparing them to villas in Dubai. The villas he saw in Mexico weren’t that pretty. Dubai was better. Classier, he supposed. But it didn’t matter, a house was a house. He tried imagining himself living in one of them in twenty years. He couldn’t, not because his living in a villa was nonsensical but because weirdly, his living for twenty more years didn’t make that much sense. He didn’t know what he’d look like then, who he’d be with. He didn’t even know if he’d still _be_ , in twenty years.

He wondered if twenty years from now, he’d still be startled whenever the tram guy showed up from nowhere. Chanyeol. He knew his name now. He also knew he gave nice hugs.

He started looking up villas in Greece instead then spent the rest of his day doing nothing much at all, not even watching anything. Jongin was way too sluggish to adjust himself to time, it just slipped past him and never looked back and he didn’t try catching up. He was already tired enough.

On Sunday, he binged a show called _Happy!_ It didn’t really make him happy but it was a pretty good show with an entertaining plot and a sufficient but twisted comedic side.

As he reached the last episode, at the end of the day, he decided that he would wait until the next season was fully out to watch it. He had seen that there were only five episodes left and if he waited for a month, he’d be able to binge it like he did with this season. Jongin didn’t like waiting for an episode every week, he wanted to watch something entirely and then move on to something else instead of watching several ongoing shows at once. He preferred compartmentalizing.

Throughout the main character accidentally destroying his ex-wife’s house while battling a few enemies, Jongin’s phone lit up on the bed. He paused the show and reached for it, surprised to see a name he hadn’t seen in a while. He’d messaged Ryan a few days back and hadn’t gotten a reply.

_Hey! Do you perhaps know a place that’s looking to hire people?_

_I really need to work dude I’m about to Die_

Jongin smiled at the dramatic tone he always used whenever he talked about something even slightly inconvenient. But it wasn’t that big of a smile, worry instantly kicked off into him.

_Is that why you haven’t been to school lately?_ he replied, actually wondering. They didn’t share the same major but Jongin usually ran into him at least once a week since they often had class in the same buildings.

_Yeah :(_

_I’ve been busy looking for a job_

_Also I’m too broke to eat outside so it sucks to always have to find an excuse to leave when it’s lunch time lmao_

Jongin pressed his lips together, tugging the corners of his mouth downwards as he watched the messages pop up on his screen. He was glad Ryan could talk about this with him, trusted him enough to share this with him when it seemed not to be the case with people he went to class with, but he couldn’t help but feel bad for him. It really must be an unpleasant situation.

_I’ll ask around and get back to you asap_ , he replied, already collecting in his mind a list of people he knew who worked student jobs. He could ask Lisa and Mark, they both respectively worked as a cashier and a waiter. _But you can’t just skip class because of this_ , he added, hoping that it wouldn’t come off as anything but concern.

_Thank you really_

_I know but I really do feel better this way_

_Even if honestly staying home just gives me more anxiety too lmao_

Jongin took a long, noisy breath in. He knew that feeling. Ryan hated not doing anything, he always thought about stuff and just generally felt better whenever he had something to do. And he was missing out on class. Jongin didn’t know if people sent him class notes on whatever he was missing but he knew being sent the notes wasn’t the same as actually taking those notes in class.

He thought a little bit before typing out his next message.

_I think it would be great if we ate together tomorrow at lunch, if you’d like?_

_We haven’t seen each other in a while and stuff_

_And I think it would also be a good change for you_

_To you know spend time with a funny dude like me_

Jongin tended to miss his friends a lot but of course, he wouldn’t spell it out as it was. He didn’t mind thinking it or saying it, he just knew men reacted to that differently than his female friends. Only Jongdae said it to most of his friends, especially when he was drunk off his mind.

_I really know you’re right but I don’t want to waste money on food I can’t :(_

_But really thanks for offering, it means a lot_

_I’ll just treat you, you don’t have to worry about that I just want you to relax for a bit_

That was genuinely what he wanted. If Jongin could help him even for the duration of a meal, that was already good enough. He’d do his best to help him and help fix whatever trouble he was in, as much as possible.

_I really can’t repay you right away though_

_You don’t have to,_ Jongin wrote, sent, stopped, and thought a little more. He didn’t want the other to feel bad. _I mean you can repay me whenever you want. If you want to do it I won’t refuse but just don’t worry about it. It’s just food I’m not doing this so you can repay me later._

The reply took a little longer to come this time and Jongin never looked away from his phone. He really didn’t want to offend anyone while trying to help them.

_I’ll repay you as soon as I can_

_It might be a while though_

_That’s perfectly fine_ , Jongin sent. _What do you wanna eat? I start class at 2._

_Well, I might as well go to class the whole day_

_Kinda hate you for that_

Jongin laughed before the next message came in.

_Nuggets?_

That was exactly what Jongin needed in his life. Nuggets tasted like greasy joy and infused anyone with that flavor.

They made a few more adjustments, where to meet and at what time exactly, before Ryan thanked him again. Jongin assured him he wasn’t doing anything that was overly kind. He was just doing what friends were supposed to do. And if by doing that, he could manage to help someone, then that made him awfully happy.

Happier than he’d been nowadays.

Jongin was positive the one person he helped more than anyone in this world was his English teacher.

As the man was trying his hardest to explain what the difference between the preterit and the pluperfect was, Jongin could see the frustration animating his every gesture. He would’ve felt the same exact way had he been in his shoes. But Jongin had just ingurgitated lots of tasty nuggets and he felt fairly good. He was positive Ryan felt better too, after talking with him. Jongin had told him that Lisa’s workplace was looking to hire and Ryan had decided to go there right after class to see if they could accept him.

He looked around, at everyone sitting in the classroom. Not even half of all attendants were truly listening to the teacher, most of them scrolling away on their phone or computer. Jongin couldn’t really judge them, the did the same thing in someof his classes as well but he was pretty sure that was nothing compared to how many people were doing it here. A lot of people had really given up. When the teacher repeated the same question for the third time, Jongin raised his hand and watched the man’s shoulders sag with relief as he gave the right answer.

Once his job was done and the class went on, Jongin glanced at Lucas sitting next to him. He was one of those people who had given up but still listened for a majority of the class. That, at least, Jongin was proud of. Despite the confusion rarely leaving his face until the end of the session.

Without disturbing him, he looked back at the teacher and tried to stay focused even if this class really wasn’t for him. He didn’t need to hear all of this, he had already been taught all of it, he already knew all of it. He grabbed a pen and lined a row of squares on his notebook. What he didn’t know was why he kept thinking about Chanyeol.

He knew his name but he was still a stranger. They’d spoken enough times to be considered friends, perhaps, but Jongin knew nothing about him. But Chanyeol knew a lot about him. He knew Jongin read poems, knew Jongin played Candy Crush, knew the reason why he’d been sad that night at the tram stop. That was a lot of things Lucas didn’t know even though he spent hours sitting right next to him five days a week and many more hours laughing at the mall, in between hamburger bites, at the end of very serious and rare conversations. Maybe it was because Lucas had never hugged him. Chanyeol had. And he’d done it very nicely.

Jongin filled in a square from bottom to top. It had really been a mending hug. He hadn’t hugged anyone in a while. Not like that. He filed in a second square. It was still odd. They’d met so many times. He didn’t believe in such a thing as destiny but perhaps, perhaps it wasn’t that farfetched of a concept. Although, he often saw the same people in the tram or the tram stop. There was a lot of students, they all took the same means of transportation and Jongin recalled remembering a few faces but never so many times in a row and he’d never gotten anything out of them, not even an eye-contact. Maybe Chanyeol was some kind of special destiny. Or something.

By the time Jongin was done filing in ten rows of squares and thinking about Chanyeol with every single blackened one, class came to an end.

A cacophony of scraping chairs sighed in relief and Lucas got up while stretching his arms over his head with a loud groan. Jongin poked his tummy with the tip of his pen when his sweater rode up to show some skin. The way Lucas startled and hit the back of his leg against the chair was the most hilarious thing that happened that day so far and Jongin was very proud of himself as he stood up. Or tried to. Laughing hard and standing straight hardly worked together.

"I will kill you," Lucas threatened with a hysterical voice while shoving his pencil case into his bag.

"That’s what you say whenever we’re playing and then you always die first," Jongin retorted with an unimpressed lowness to his voice.

Lucas bent over his bag, holding a hand against his chest and scrunching his face.

"You didn’t have to break my heart like that," he whined, only extracting more laughter out of Jongin. What a clown.

Before he could retort something that would make the both of them laugh even more, someone called his name and he looked in front of him. On the other side of his desk, stood a girl Jongin saw every week in this class. He couldn’t recall her name.

"Hey," he said, looking at her carefully. He really had no idea what her name was, she wasn’t a literature major like he was, this class mixed different majors from all over campus.

She gave him a smile, not too big, pretty uncertain. "I was wondering if you could help me with the homework we were just given?"

Jongin looked at Lucas first, taken aback by this demand. But Lucas was too busy staring at the girl and when Jongin looked back at her, she’d widened her smile into awkwardness.

"I mean, I know you’re pretty good at English and it would be a very big help if you just," she stopped to wave her hands in front of her in a slight gesture, "explained to me what exactly we’re supposed to do. I didn’t quite get it." Her voice lowered on her last sentence, as if she feared the teacher would hear them.

Jongin was pretty sure the man had given a good explanation. He couldn’t recall her name but he always saw her at the front of the class, raising her hand and often getting the wrong answer. She was one of those rare people still trying.

"Sure!" he said right away, before she could take his silence as rejection. "Of course I’ll try to help you as much as I can. We can go over the thing and do it together if you want?" That way he’d be able to do it as well, he knew he didn’t need that long to wrong a short essay on where he wanted to travel in England. That was a high school-level assignment.

"That would be very nice, thanks," she said, her hands joining in front of her and dropping. "When are you free?"

Jongin hummed. "We could do it right now if you want? Or sometime tomorrow? I’m free after 15."

"I have another class to attend now," she said, scrunching her face as she pointed her thumb over her shoulder, behind her. "Tomorrow at 3 is good for me too. I have an hour of break then," she said, unlocking her phone. "Can I add you on Facebook? Snap?"

Jongin gave her both, just in case, and she thanked him again before leaving. Lucas spent all the way to their next class teasing him about having a potential future girlfriend but at least, Jongin felt a little useful.

In the end, Lucas ate back every single one of his words when the next day, Jongin found out that she had a boyfriend. She’d told him herself, while they’d been conversing a little in-between writing a few sentences. Jongin hadn’t minded, he hadn’t chosen to help her because of any underlaying intentions. Jongin wasn’t Lucas. Saying that had earned him a fake punch from Lucas.

But he’d been happy to help and she’d looked like she genuinely needed it. Jongin was no teacher at all but he hoped she would retain a few things he’d explained her today. And he’d earned a new friend, that was the best part of it.

The feeling didn’t last for long, however, diminishing with every step Jongin took towards the tram stop. Maybe happiness was at his feet and Jongin dropped crumbles of it each time the sole of his shoes collided with the ground. He never looked back to pick anything up. He wanted to go home.

Once he arrived at the stop, happy to see that there was next to no one waiting, he pulled his earphones out of his pockets, plugged them into his phone, and scrolled through his playlists. He didn’t really feel like listening to something happy, he didn’t really feel like listening to everything he usually listened to so he explored the app for a little while, thumb freezing when he scrolled down to one particular genre suggested to him. He looked at it, opened his own playlists again, shuffled the most attractive one. Nothing better than sad songs when you felt sad. Jongin sometimes loved adding salt to the wound, pouring sadness to the sorrow.

As his ears filled up with those mournful notes he liked so much, Jongin went back to the section he’d seen earlier and opened up the playlist. As he scrolled through songs he had never even heard of, a surge of guilt scratched at his mind. He never listened to any Korean song.

He was just used to French culture, mostly listened to music from here and music from the western market, like most people did. His mother always sang along to Korean songs whenever she listened to it, sometimes muttered the lyrics to herself while going around the silence of the house. Jongin only used the language to speak with his parents, and sometimes it wasn’t even pure Korean. He stained it by switching mid-sentence, alternating throughout conversations when one was actually held. If someone ever heard him talking in his house, they would probably find it funny. Even he found it funny to use French throughout his whole sentence except for the word chopsticks when asking his mother if she could bring them to him.

Despite all of that, Jongin felt weirdly detached from it. Or maybe that culture was detached from him. It was only stuck on half of him, the other half born into an entirely different world.

When the tram arrived, he stepped in and decided to sit in one of the many available seats, for once. He was very tried, happiness had been peeled out of him as he walked.

Maybe he should feel bad. Maybe he should try to be more interested in his roots. But roots weren’t who he was. He was just himself, just Jongin, not just a root or the soil he was birthed in. Or maybe he didn’t know who he actually was.

When he stepped out of the tram, he decided to stop thinking about it and start thinking about what he would do once he was home. He didn’t really want to study. He didn’t even have much to study. It was difficult to find anything left to study after doing it so much and so often.

It took Jongin a whole week to walk from the tram stop to his house but he still wasn’t able to figure out what he wanted to do. When he rounded the corner and engulfed into his neighborhood, he was welcomed by a barking so loud it startled him more than thunder. It wasn’t one of those storms he hated so much, though. It was just another dog barking at Chanyeol while its owner tried its hardest to pull it away with a soothing words and a harsh grip.

He looked sad, the same way he’d looked the last time Jongin had seen this exact scene in another part of the city. He didn’t know what Chanyeol was doing here. He didn’t wonder what Chanyeol was doing here. After spending his entire weekend and two school days thinking about him, Jongin was relieved to see him somewhere other than inside his own head.

The owner managed to pull his dog away by the time Jongin was a few steps away from him and could properly see the sad puff of his lower lip. He walked faster than he had the entire day to reach him.

"Seems like dogs don’t really like you," Jongin said in stead of a greeting, standing in front of him on the sidewalk.

Facing each other, amidst daylight, Jongin realized that Chanyeol wasn’t that much taller than him. Just enough. He didn’t really mind. He had nice eyelashes. He didn’t know why but when Chanyeol furrowed his eyebrows and doted his chin with unhappiness, all Jongin could notice was that he had really nice eyelashes. He didn’t know what his standards and criteria were, but they were pleasant to look at. Maybe this would be his standards from now on.

"I’m a dog person," he said, voice crushed a little despite his apparent will to defend himself. Jongin understood that sadness. He would be devastated too if dogs barked at him so aggressively instead of letting him caress their tiny little adorable head.

But this was funny, somehow. That dogs didn’t like Chanyeol and he was sad about it. His expression was funny. Not the kind of funny that made him want to laugh, but the kind that made him want to smile. So he did.

"Well, it looks like dogs aren’t you dogs."

A blank moment of looking at each other, a very fake laugh coming out of Chanyeol’s offendedly widened mouth, and Jongin’s smile felt way too big for the situation when it ripped laughter on his lips. It was so abrupt and strong, it took over his entire existence for those few seconds, his whole face morphing into a smile instead of just a pair of eyes, a nose, and lips.

They’d never really joked around like this. Jongin wasn’t sure they should. He should probably feel humiliated when he thought back on the fact that he had cried in front of this boy in the middle of the night _and_ the street for no apparent reason. But this person had merely hugged him, at that moment. That was enough for Jongin to feel like they could joke around, laugh. Maybe cry.

But he didn’t want to cry, not right now, not anymore. He was tired of feeling pathetic and pitying himself. He wanted to spend a good time and enjoy it to the fullest. This could be that.

"How have you been?" he asked instead, genuinely not wanting the conversation to just stop right there. This was a little nice, a little different than last time. There was no terrible feeling hanging over Jongin or between them. Even if Chanyeol hadn’t been the one to feel bad last time. Or at least, Jongin hoped he hadn’t felt bad for him. Or pity. Or something like that.

He broke those thoughts right away before they could grow into something deeper. He didn’t want to think about that possibility.

Chanyeol didn’t answer right away. Jongin’s gaze shifted between his eyes. Each was equally as nice to look into. It was difficult to choose. Weirdly.

"What did you eat for breakfast?" Chanyeol asked and that question didn’t come as delicately as his eyelashes batted when he blinked. It was a weird question, cutting through the path Jongin had tried stirring the conversation to.

Jongin still replied to it. "Cereals. Lion." It came as an automatism. That was what Jongin ate every morning since last month. The month before that it was cheese. Next month, it would probably be something else. "What about you?" he asked, hoping that at least this question would be answered.

Chanyeol always seemed to ignore his questions and reply to them with unrelated questions of his own. He had a lot of questions, Jongin noticed.

Chanyeol looked down and Jongin’s focus shifted from his eyelashes to his eyebrows when he furrowed them. His mouth seemed to automatically fall open whenever those eyebrows frowned.

"I haven’t eaten breakfast in a while," he said, voice lower than his gaze. He looked back up at Jongin to balance it out. Still the same green hoodie. "I don’t really get hungry in the morning."

"But breakfast’s the most important meal of the day," Jongin reprimanded him, voice getting halfway lost in the car that drove by behind them. He didn’t have the healthiest breakfast but at least, he always made sure to eat something before leaving the house.

"I miss cereals," Chanyeol said, voice crashing down with a sigh.

He looked so crestfallen about it. Jongin had never seen someone looking so dejected about cereals. It was a little endearing. Jongin wasn’t used to finding anyone but dogs endearing. Especially people who were seemingly disliked by dogs.

There were many things Jongin could say then. He could laugh, make fun of him, tell him to go buy a pack because he would certainly never regret it and it would make his life much better the way it made Jongin’s.

Instead, he pressed his lips together, watched Chanyeol as Chanyeol watched a bicycle running past them towards the left.

"I have a lot at home. You could come over," he offered instead, a big break between those twosentences.

He didn’t hesitate because he wasn’t sure of what he wanted. He hesitated because he wasn’t sure whether it was weird of him to want it.

Chanyeol looked at him, eyebrows raising. He was really expressive. Jongin liked expressive people. Jongdae was the most expressive person he knew but maybe Chanyeol could come very close.

"Are you sure?" he asked and Jongin smiled at the fact that this was his first reaction.

"Yeah, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want you to come over," he affirmed with acasual lift of one shoulder towards his ear.

Chanyeol closed his mouth, looked at him some more. Jongin’s neighborhood was usually pretty busy but it seemed particularly empty today. Just Chanyeol and him, despite the car and the bicycle from earlier. It still felt like just Chanyeol and him.

"I’m not really hungry right now." Maybe Jongin was the only to like the way it could be just Chanyeol and him. "I don’t think I could eat."

"Yeah," was the only thing Jongin found to say, just because he had to say something, despite the disappoint he wasn’t sure he should feel either.

"But if the invite’s still on without the cereals, I’m in." Jongin realized he’d been looking down only when his head tilted up so he could properly see Chanyeol instead of just the wide holes on his jeans. He smiled, proper, not even a dimple peeking in. "I’d like to be in."

Jongin huffed a laughter out.

"You have a really weird way of saying things," he couldn’t help but notice, his own smile widening when Chanyeol’s did.

"Why do you think so?" he said, turning his head a little so he was side eyeing Jongin. His eyelashes looked even prettier from that tilted angle. Maybe this was the moment Jongin discovered his first fetish.

To prevent himself from laughing at his own thought, he hummed longly as he looked at Chanyeol from head to the tip of his shoes.

"You’re like that mysterious anime guy who’s always brooding alone in a corner with his hood on and only says cryptical stuff whenever he’s talked to," he said, nodding exaggeratedly throughout his own description to make it as believable as possible. He truly did think so. The parting of Chanyeol’s lips indicated him that he’d never thought so about himself even once. "But then you’re also pretty funny."

An offended huff was thrown his way. "Maybe you think I’m weird because _you_ are weird," Chanyeol said, illustrating his words by pointing at him. It was softened by the smile on his face and the amusement in the lightness of his voice.

"Well, weird plus weird could make a good, positive mix," he chortled, gesturing him to follow along with a hand as he started walking the few meters separating him from the house.

In the few blinks it took for them to reach the house, Jongin learned that it was nice to walk along with Chanyeol, for some reason. He quite liked it. He didn’t feel as slow, someone was keeping up with his pace.

And Chanyeol was pretty good at keeping up with him. It was a nice change when they arrived home and he took his shoes off at the entrance almost immediately. Usually, when friends came over, Jongin had to tell them that they _could_ take their shoes off at the entrance. No one did it before he asked them to.

That feeling diminished once they went upstairs and entered Jongin’s room. He wasn’t sure what to do exactly. He stood at the center of the room, hands straightening his hoodie’s pockets as Chanyeol looked and walked around. This was a little awkward. This was a reminder that this wasn’t really an actual friend but someone on their way to becoming a friend. There was a slight nuance. Jongin didn’t know how to behave around Chanyeol yet.

He cleared his throat and stepped to the small television hung on the wall his desk was pushed against.

"We could play games or something," he suggested, taking the easy, default route that he knew most boys his age, or most males of most ages would appreciate and bond through.

He grabbed two boxes and considered which game to play amongst the two.

"Is that a poem?" Jongin looked at Chanyeol when his voice cut through his intense consideration between his two favorite games.

His voice hadn’t startled Jongin, this once, but the way he was leaned over his desk, hands holding onto the chair as support while he looked at Jongin with attentive eyes, wasn’t the most pleasant feeling.

Jongin had forgotten to put away his poetry books like he usually did whenever people came over.

"Yeah," he said and he should’ve stopped there because the two huffs of laughter he let out sounded more awkward than he’d sounded even when his voice had been cracking on its way through puberty. "It’s for school."

" _Demain, dès l’aube_ ," was the title Chanyeol read out loud, voice gradually coming down to a softness that he tied up with a hum. He looked back at Jongin again and Jongin was still immobile, holding onto the games, still feeling way more panicked about this than he should. They were just poems. To him, they were normal. "What do you study in college?"

"Literature," he explained, finally finding it in himself to drop the games and take the two steps separating him from Chanyeol.

Chanyeol nodded his head, a drowsy movement that underlined the attention in his gaze. "Makes sense," he said then, before straightening his back.

Jongin chortled. Even he wasn’t whether it was an amused sound or still a stressed one.

"What does that mean?" he questioned, narrowing his eyes to let the other know he wasn’t offended despite the tone.

Chanyeol pressed his lips together and raised his eyebrows to a teasing height over his eyes.

"That was just a mysterious hot dark anime boy sentence."

When Jongin laughed, it was halfway stopped by the press of his lips together. "I never said _hot_ when I talked about that," he snorted, pretty sure of himself.

Chanyeol raised his hands just a little bit on either side of his body, palm upwards as they mimicked a shrug. Or something else. He wasn’t sure, Jongin’s eyes were too slow to take in anything else but the crookedness of Chanyeol’s smile. It made him look much, much younger than Jongin.

"All mysterious dark and cryptical anime boys are hot by definition," he said, looking away from Jongin at the end of his sentence. Jongin was too busy still hearing the fluctuations in his voice to see him grab the book. He wasn’t sure it was just teasing.

He also wasn’t sure he found Chanyeol not hot.

"This poem sounds familiar," Chanyeol muttered before Jongin could even think of what to say.

He looked at the page, still the same poem.

"It’s one of Victor Hugo’s most famous poems, you’ve probably studied it at school at some point," Jongin explained, unable to hold on a smile.

He’d studied it in high school. He’d discovered it in class, then read it every single night for two weeks straight. It was then that Jongin decided he liked poems and wanted to study literature for the next few years of his life.

"Maybe," was all Chanyeol said and Jongin didn’t answer anything to that but his lips refused to yield down to a more relaxed shape. He found that smiling was when the only moment when his face felt pretty loose and easy to live with.

_"Demain, dès l’aube_ ," Chanyeol repeated and that was one of Jongin’s favorite titles ever. Titles were very important.

But Chanyeol didn’t stop there, he kept going on, walked his voice right into the poem, took Jongin’s hand and made him walk alongside him. As he read Jongin’s special poem, lingering on each syllable, voice never rising but always falling at the end of his lines, it felt like Jongin was absorbed into his voice.

It felt nice to feel like he was safely guided through a path instead of constantly losing bits of himself here and there, alone.

It was a mellifluous voice, warm in its timbre, not engulfing in its depth, just like a tuck into comfort. It was an odd sensation but not an off one, it was just like a blanket, not necessarily safe in its essence but wafting off that sensation as soon as it was laid upon you. It was a feeling Jongin liked, rediscovering each of those words he knew by heart through another’s voice. It was a new poem.

Not in the words, because those were the same words he’d read hundreds of times, but in its delivery. The pace was embellishing to the emotions written in it, the tone was steadier than Jongin knew it should be but it was fitting, and the message, the message was another feeling entirely. A sauntering that made the poem come alive, tranquility that made it so easy to live in those stanzas. It wasn’t a rush. Jongin didn’t feel like he was lacking behind. It felt just right.

And when it ended, Jongin was almost disappointed. But he wasn’t. Not now. Not at all.

"It’s nice," Chanyeol said, voice concealing the trembling in the air Jongin breathed in through his mouth. He was still looking at the book, still holding it in his hands. This book had one of the best covers Jongin had seen, it was the best edition, and yet he couldn’t focus on anything but Chanyeol’s hands, then the seriousness on his face, calmative and attentive, then his hands again. "Happy."

"You find it happy?" Jongin asked, a tad too late. He could still hear Chanyeol’s voice reciting the poem in his head, it soaked his mind like ink.

"Well," Chanyeol said, putting the book down, turning to press his back against the chair, hands holding it behind him as he turned his head to Jongin who said nothing and listened to him. It was a pretty surprising interpretation considering the poem was about the author himself laying flowers on his late daughter’s grave. "At the beginning. I thought it would be a happy poem in the first paragraph." Stanza. Jongin didn’t say anything, just nodded and he went on. "But gradually it got sadder. I didn’t think that would be the ending when I read the first lines."

Jongin looked at him, truly looked at him and the softness of his hair despite it being pushed back, the clarity on his forehead, the press of his lips into a thoughtful tug at the corners. Chanyeol had read this poem and was thinking about it. Chanyeol hadn’t discarded it or made fun of it or called it girly or one of those adjectives Jongin feared to hear so much. Chanyeol was discussing his favorite poem with him and Jongin hadn’t felt so happy in a long time - since the last time he’d been with Chanyeol.

"I think it’s a beautiful kind of sadness," Jongin said, smiling without any real joy. It was just tenderness. Years had passed but he still felt the same way about this poem. "Sadness isn’t always ugly. Sometimes, it’s beautiful. Sometimes, you can make something beautiful out of it. Sometimes, the fact that you’re able to feel it is what’s beautiful."

Jongin felt his heart beating once, a beat much stronger than any other, a bit too painful before it vanished. He wished he could turn his sadness into something to admire. Like this poem. But he couldn’t. Jongin was that other ‘sometimes’, he was one of those times sadness was ugly and repulsive and degrading.

"Do you really think sadness is beautiful?" Chanyeol asked, head tilted. "I think it’s an ugly feeling, at its core. It’s not pleasant."

Jongin shrugged with his mouth. "It is ugly," he admitted. He knew it very well. "But it can be a beautiful tool." Jongin had read so many masterpieces written out of sorrow. "You choose what to do with it. If you want it to remain only ugly, or if you want to make it more than that, even though that’s what it is at its core."

"But is it really a choice?" Chanyeol asked, head still tilted, eyes still on Jongin but this time, Jongin felt like he was truly being questioned. His voice was still as pleasant to listen to even when it seeded uncertainty into him.

Did Jongin have that choice? Or did he only _think_ there could be a choice? He wasn’t sure.

"I don’t know," he admitted, easily. He turned around and dropped down on his bed, body bouncing once on the mattress with the reverberation of his weight as he sat down. "I really don’t know."

"Do you know who this was written for?" Chanyeol pulled him out of his thoughts before they could fully dive into the fact that he’d maybe spoken without considering his own situation and feelings. "Writers always write for someone, don’t they?"

The fact that Chanyeol was asking that question made him feel a little better. It wasn’t a filler question.

"There’s always a reason why they write, yeah. Sometimes, there’s a person they write for. He wrote that poem for his late daughter," Jongin said, leaning forward, supporting his elbows on his knees. He nodded towards the chair. "You can sit, you know."

Chanyeol turned around, looked at the open book while pulling the chair back.

"So these are the feelings of someone who’s mourning a loved one," Chanyeol said, voice so low it turned into a hum by the end of his sentence. He sat down, twisted the chair towards Jongin.

"Some of the feelings, yeah," Jongin said, voice adjusting to Chanyeol’s so easily it felt like they were two halves of a single entity.

Chanyeol nodded, looking at Jongin. Before Jongin could wonder if he was really being seen, Chanyeol smiled at him and reached for the book again.

"Can I look through it?"

Jongin had never expected to hear that question from anyone in this context, had always assumed it wouldn’t happen, hadn’t even imagined it would make him smile so hard. But not as hard as comfort hit him. A harsh kind of softness, harsh in its unfamiliarity.

Chanyeol asked too many question but maybe he always asked the right ones.

Jongin really liked parties. He truly did. Only when there was people he knew.

This guy had been trying to hold a conversation with him for five whole minutes despite them not knowing each other at all. Jongin could understand. The guy, who’d forgotten to even give him his name, didn’t know anyone at this party except for one person. That made Jongin try his hardest to communicate but there was a limit to how long he could keep talking about how classes sucked and this music was pretty great.

Sometimes, Jongin wished he was a little less shy, that would make it easier for him. He wished he could be like Chanyeol and just walk up to strangers and tell them that he too played that lame game that went out of trend years ago.

But instead, Jongin was stuck there, listening this person babbling about the same thing over and over again because not only was he drunk but he also didn’t know what to talk about.

"Is that plain coke?"

Jongin turned to his right. That could’ve been a liberating, relieving sentence had it not been pronounced by yet another person he didn’t know and with a tone that wasn’t quite pleasant to his ears.

"Yeah," he replied with an awkward laugh. He didn’t even know how he’d noticed it. Coke looked the same with or without additional vodka. Maybe he’d just seen Jongin serving himself plain soda a few times. He looked over the guy’s shoulder to see Jongdae approaching just as a group of people laughed boisterously on his right.

He’d left to go to the bathroom and Jongdae always took too long in the bathroom, Jongin should start to learn not to let him go alone. Even standing in front of the bathroom’s door was more fun than talking to a stranger.

"Just coke?" the guy insisted, one of his eyes blinking slower than the other. Drunk people were funny only when Jongin knew their entire school history. This one was pressuring. He glanced at the boy he’d been talking to. Their eyes met in silence before he looked at the drunk guy again. No help from there, Jongin figured.

"I don’t drink," Jongin said, waving a hand in front of him. Silly gesture, it wasn’t like he’d just been offered to drink.

He hadn’t been offered anything but he still felt a strongly unpleasant taste going down his throat when he swallowed. The laugh the guy gave him was sudden and wobbly, so wobbly that he held onto Jongin’s arm not to fall.

"What even are you?" the guy wheezed, cheeks red. Jongin should pull his arm away but he didn’t want the guy to fall and spill his drink on him. It was a strong one, he supposed. "Just drink, man." He straightened up and before Jongin could feel any kind of relief, he pushed his glass towards him. It was halfway empty and nothing spilled but Jongin felt very stained. "Here. Drink this. You’ll see."

"No thanks," Jongin said, keeping his tone firm but down to avoid any trouble. He didn’t want to get angry. He knew how anger turned out at a party with drunk people. He held it back. He stepped back but the guy followed, shaking his glass in front of him in insistence. This usually didn’t happen. "I don’t want to drink."

He really didn’t want to. Not even a single sip. He didn’t want to and that was normal and there was nothing wrong about it and yet when the guy snickered and stepped closer to him again, Jongin felt like the biggest loser on earth.

"Fuck off, man," Jongdae’s voice came from behind the guy. Jongin couldn’t even see him, the guy was too buff, too close to his face with the glass he could spill at any moment.

The music changed to an even faster beat and the guy stumbled a little when Jongdae pulled him back by the shoulder. Someone grabbed the guy and Jongin watched them argue a bit about bumping into each other. Jongdae stepped in front of him. He too, was a little wobbly on his feet. But he looked more sober than earlier.

"You okay?" he asked and Jongin smiled, genuinely. It was a little better now.

He nodded and maybe Jongdae wasn’t that sober because he suddenly took him in his arms while yelling an _I appreciate you so much dude I’m glad you’re okay_ that was louder than the music. Jongin snorted and then groaned when the bad-conversation guy who’d been standing there all along joined it and hugged him from the side as well. Jongdae always ended up hugging his friends when he got drunk. That, was funny.

They hung around a bit, conversation with strangers wasn’t that hard to make with Jongdae there. Jongin hadn’t said it in that moment, but he appreciated Jongdae as well.

Maybe when Jongdae had hugged him and let go of him, he’d taken something along from Jongin. When both he and the stranger whose name he still didn’t know scattered away and Jongin decided to drop on the couch and rest a bit, he felt like he could become one with the wimpiness of it. He was tired.

He looked around him while sipping on his coke. It wasn’t really fresh anymore, lukewarm and spritzed only by the bubbles on his tongue. There was a lot of people. Not all of them were drunk but all of them were merry. Except for one person in that room, trying his hardest to blend into the couch. But it didn’t work. Jongin felt like he stood out too much.

It had been alright until then. Or until before. He didn’t even know when exactly he started feeling like he didn’t want to be here anymore. That never happened before, before all of these feelings he couldn’t get rid of. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t blame Jongdae or the stranger for having stolen his happiness through that cheesy hug. He wasn’t sure whether he actually forced himself to feel alright whenever he felt alright.

Maybe he should stop going to places crowded by happy people. It made him feel like there was no room for him there.

When he got home, it was empty and dark and a lot of wide, partially open space. It was just Jongin and his room’s furnitures and yet, he still didn’t entirely feel like he had room in there.

He was in bed, staring at his own hand, laying on his side, trying to see if he could feel time passing, maybe with a shift in the air or a shift against his skin, unsure whether he’d spent an hour like that or five minutes, when he realized it. There was something wrong with him.

There was something terribly wrong with him and he didn’t know what. He had no idea but this wasn’t normal, holding this much sadness in that small of a body wasn’t normal. This wasn’t him. He took a deep breath in, blew it out slowly through his nose. Feeling so left behind when time-flow had never changed wasn’t normal. Wanting to be left alone when he used to love people so much wasn’t normal. Another deep breath that he ejected out before he could even properly feel it inside of him.

This emotion, it wasn’t normal. He felt like he was crying for something he’d lost without ever realizing he’d lost it. He sighed, closed his eyes, left his lips parted. Pushing air out of his mouth was actually exhausting. He couldn’t have started mourning happiness before he’d even lost it. That wasn’t it. There was something wrong with him. He took another deep breath in, let it out, breathed in, breathed out, and felt the rhythm accelerating, felt his eyes burning a little more with each inhale and exhale.

When the a tear escaped him, Jongin slapped his palm against his closed eyed. He parted his lips in a tremble, his breath went back to a regular pace, not speeding up anymore, albeit it was choppier and made out of hiccups now. He rubbed his eyes, turned to lay on his other side, pressed his lips together to keep a dramatic sob in. He was being dramatic, he truly felt like he was, because there was no reason for him to feel this way and he hated himself for not being able to figure his own emotions out and he hated this. There was nothing more pathetic than just laying in bed and waiting for the tears to flow. A night out of two. Out of three if he was lucky. He hated thinking that way too. He just despised it all. But no matter how much he tried not to feel this way, it was out of his control.

He kept his hand pressed near his eyes, wiping in vain, keeping his eyes closed because it might make it seem more like a nightmare than the reality he lived in now. It didn’t really, but Jongin didn’t even care. He just wanted to get used to this as quickly as possible and learn how to deal with it but he didn’t know how he was supposed to live with the fact that he ran out of joy so quickly every single day. Like the battery of his happiness had suddenly gone defective. Jongin had no idea where to, how to get it fixed.

He tried pulling his blanket closer to him but it was difficult to do that to something that already laid on top of him. He still tried, wishing that Chanyeol was there to hug him again. It didn’t recharge his battery, or made anything feel much better. It was just nice to know he wasn’t alone, nice to physically feel it. Nice to be hugged by Chanyeol.

But Chanyeol wasn’t there, so all Jongin could do was wish that he’d be able to mend it all on his own and get to sleep quickly. He wasn’t sure it was a wish easier to make true.

The first thing Jongin did in the morning was wait for both his mother and father to be out in order to get out of bed. He skipped breakfast, spent the entire morning watching food recipe videos instead of eating, and decided to try one of them when he left bed around noon.

It was an easy recipe, he put some music on, pretended the sadness he felt was just the music blending into the air he breathed in, and not the air he breathed out from his own body. He melted a bit of butter in a tiny cup, cut tiny pieces of parsley into it, sung along to a song as he spread it over three slices of whole wheat bread. He then put them into the oven for a short moment, thinking about the fact that he hadn’t replied to any of his friends since he’d gotten home last night. He didn’t really feel like talking to anyone and by the time the bread looked toasted enough, he got the tray out of the oven and decided that he would make people wait just a little more. He didn’t like halfhearted conversations and at the moment, that would be all he’d be able to give anyone.

He spread some sour cream on top of the butter, wondering if he’d finished all his homework. Probably not, he’d have to check. He cut thin slices of goat cheese, placed them on the bread, and dripped honey on top of them. He sighed when the next song that came on was a happier ballad. He’d have to rearrange his playlist, he’d put all kinds of ballads in it, making no difference between happy and sad ones. But maybe it wasn’t that big of a problem. He put the tray back in the oven, leaned against the counter, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited. He really liked the goat cheese and honey combination. This would be good. This would make him feel good.

After some time he hadn’t even been able to measure, Jongin took everything out of the oven and moved the toasts to a plate so they could cool down quicker. He put away everything he’d used while waiting for it to be eatable but he was starting to feel really hungry so he decided not to wait any longer. He took the first bite, tasted his tongue burning more than anything else, took a second bite and the sweetness allied to the cheese’s sourness was something Jongin had tasted many times in his life but it still amazed him nonetheless. He ate all of it while scrolling down that one dog thoughts account on Twitter and his morning was pretty much saved.

He finished everything, put his phone down, and decided that happiness was really temporary. He couldn’t be happy for a long time, nor without ever having downs. That was just the way things were. It had never bothered him before. It was something that everyone knew. But Jongin felt like his moments of joy were starting to become shorter and shorter and every other kind of negative feeling was starting to take way too much time in his days.

Chocolate. Chocolate made everyone happy. It was scientifically proven. Or something like that, Lucas always said that whenever he brought a whole tab of chocolate to class to eat it throughout the day.

He went out of the house in record time, walked to the convenience store a few streets down in record time, found the flavor he’d want to eat in an undesirably long span of time. When he left the store, he barely remembered at what time he’d gotten out of the house. When he arrived, he didn’t know how long it took him but he didn’t really think much about it. Because slow, fast, or frozen, time had led him to stumble upon Chanyeol again.

As he walked towards him, Jongin watched him standing there, leaned against a dead streetlight, his eyes veered to the floor. He wondered if they ever even parted ways. Somehow, it felt like Chanyeol was always there, was never gone. Continuous, like time.

"You live around here?" Jongin greeted him with, gesturing around him with the chocolate bar he was holding.

Chanyeol had raised his gaze to him earlier, while he’d been approaching but hadn’t said anything. The start of their conversations always seemed monotone, nonexistent in some kind of of way Jongin wouldn’t be able to describe nor explain. Then again, there were lots of things he couldn’t explain nowadays. One thing, really.

"Yeah," Chanyeol said, pushing himself away from the lamppost. He was wearing another hoodie, this one had some graphics on it. He gestured around him with a hand. He never seemed to get cold. Jongin’s hands turned red and his nails purple if his hands got too cold. "I’m around here now."

Jongin should ask what he meant by _around here now_. That didn’t really answer his question. He saw Chanyeol a lot around his house. He should think that it was strange. But there was a lot of weird feelings in Jongin and he thought they weren’t normal but were they actually abnormal? He wasn’t sure.

Instead, he observed Chanyeol properly. His hair was pushed up, always pushed up, and he had a nice forehead. He had a nice face. Jongin hadn’t really found a face nice in a long time. He hadn’t felt nice in a long time either. Since when they’d read poems and discussed them together. He looked at Chanyeol’s ears. He’d read a poem about ears once, it had been a very funny one. Maybe he should find it and show it to Chanyeol, because he had pretty large ears. Because they were pretty endearing, although the poem wasn’t endearing but merely funny.

Pretty nice. Like being with Chanyeol.

He cleared his throat, furrowed his eyebrows when wind blew exasperating coldness against the tip of his ears.

"Do you wanna come over to play some games?" he asked, shoving his hands and the chocolate bar into his coat’s pockets.

"Games?" Chanyeol repeated, perking up. Jongin liked this hairstyle on him, not only because he hadn’t seen any other hairstyle on him but also because it made all his expressions very visible, with no hair on the way.

He seemed to like games. Jongin didn’t know, they hadn’t played games at all last time, just focused on his collection of poetry books. Chanyeol had called it impressive, had even chosen his favorite cover. Jongin felt a little less shallow for always going for pretty covers after that.

"Yeah," Jongin confirmed with a nod. He sniffled, moved his weight from one foot to another, then back. "I got plenty at home."

"I don’t know," Chanyeol said, humming a little after that. Before and after. He always hummed. "Are you ready to lose?" The defiant shape of a smile threaded on his lips once he was done speaking.

"Lose?" Jongin repeated, raising his eyebrows and stretching his word. He liked this. Chanyeol came off as pretty challenging, often. He only realized it then. One more thing he knew about the other. "I won’t lose in my own house."

"We’ll see about that," Chanyeol said with a snort that made Jongin laugh.

They went inside the house, Chanyeol laughing when Jongin knocked his elbow against a car parked along the street. Rearview mirrors were a danger.

It was less awkward this time, when they went in, took their shoes off, and arrived into Jongin’s room. Chanyeol sat on the bed when Jongin told him that he could and waited as Jongin listed out all the games he owned. Chanyeol had clear favorites, replying yes or no to whatever name Jongin called out. It was a little funny. Jongin usually only played computer games with his friends and from a distance, this was novel to him. Nice. More than nice, but Jongin wasn’t even sure what to qualify this feeling with yet.

They started playing soon enough and Chanyeol turned out to be a pretty good opponent, knowing exactly when to hit, where, and with what combination of moves. The first game was pretty calm, until Jongin lost and Chanyeol gave him that laugh, the one that made Jongin feel both glad to lose because he looked rather handsome with pretentiousness on his face, and enflamed because he had previously affirmed that he wouldn’t lose.

That was when things started to get funnier and Jongin didn’t think he would be so childish but somehow, Chanyeol made winning against him a goal he _had_ to attain. Maybe Chanyeol changed him a little too, because Jongin had never really had to play dirty to win but he didn’t hesitate to accidentally slap Chanyeol’s controller out of his hands.

It was reciprocated quickly enough - almost enough for Jongin to regret it. Chanyeol did it tenfold, leaning all his bodyweight against Jongin’s shoulder to make him lose both balance and focus, laughing loudly into his ear. Jongin hadn’t screamed so loud in so long, especially not as loud as when he tried to sabotage Chanyeol with his foot and Chanyeol came very close to biting his leg. Jongin ended up falling over and losing the game again.

It didn’t matter. Sometimes, he managed to win and it felt fulfilling. Most of the time, he lost and it still felt fulfilling when Chanyeol looked so happy about it. He’d never seen Chanyeol smile so much either.

Jongin made sure to soak in every single one of his smiles, or his touches, or the good vibe he projected into him as they continued playing until it was way into the evening and Chanyeol had to leave before his parents came home.

Before leaving, when Chanyeol asked him if they could do this again some other time, Jongin easily accepted, easily kept the pleasant feeling with him for the rest of the evening.

It ran out again the next day.

In class, Jongin wasn’t able to concentrate. It had been going well, until it wasn’t anymore and he couldn’t focus on one of his favorite classes just because he couldn’t ignore the feeling eating his mind, nibbling at it little by little. It was a constant. He was tired of never being content with whatever he was doing.

He had no idea how he managed to stay sane until the end of class but he did, trying his hardest to note down chopped sentences, using all his will to keep his eyes from leaking out the ugly feeling nested in him. He hated it. Taking deep breaths and taking just as much time to exhale them helped, reading a few poems helped too, until Jongin realized he couldn’t find a single poem interesting enough for him to read it until the end. He hated the way this made him unsatisfied even with his main source of comfort.

By the end of class, Jongin didn’t want to be in contact with anyone anymore. Every noise coming from everyone around him, voices, sounds, felt like walls closing in on him and Jongin escaped before it locked him down, promptly bidding his friends goodbye. None of them had time to do anything but give him weird looks, Jongin aligned a single sentence to tell them he had to get home quickly before leaving. He was the first person out of the classroom.

He jumped into the first tram he caught, fortunately not having to wait for long. It wasn’t as full as it could be but Jongin still felt the air inside plugging discomfort into his skin. He didn’t try to look for a seat, merely stood throughout the journey, trying to find a happy song to listen to but gradually getting gloomier when they all failed to cheer him up. When the tram stopped and inspectors came in to check everyone’s tickets or cards, Jongin breathed out loudly and readied himself for a few additional minutes of commute. They always took too much time. He didn’t need this to be longer.

They left, the tram drove forward, and Jongin could barely feel his back as it continuously hit the locked door he was leaning against with every sharp turn the train took. This wasn’t the smoothest driver he’d ever traveled with. He didn’t look out the window, looked down instead, felt part of his body disintegrating with each second that distorted into a minute. Jongin felt languid but time felt slower and he didn’t like this adjustment. It felt better when he was the one left behind. This was worse. He just wanted to get home.

On his way out of the train, he bumped into a woman who tried to get in without waiting for people to get out first. Their shoulders bumped together harshly and Jongin didn’t even turn around, clenched his jaw and strode away, rushing in-between the crowd waiting to get in. He hated this city and he hated these people and he hated himself for hating everything around him and never finding satisfaction in anything.

When he arrived home, it was empty. He toed his shoes off, didn’t put them aside neatly, tripped on one of them as he advanced into the entrance hall. The relief of being alone in his house didn’t wash away even half of the twists in his stomach, one of them so violent a strap of his bag slid down his shoulder. It was heavy. There was nothing but his laptop inside and it felt like he was carrying rocks on his back. It was a bag Jongin carried almost every single day of his life for the past years and he’d never felt that weight wearing him out so hard.

He closed the door of his room, tired himself out even more by carefully putting his bag on his desk, then crashed on his bed. He closed his eyes before he could even catch aglimpse of the ceiling hovering over him. It felt too close. Jongin couldn’t breathe, didn’t want to see that it wasn’t close to him at all, didn’t want to see that it was just all in his head. Because it was really just all in his head.

There was nothing wrong around him, there was nothing wrong in anything but him. He rubbed a hand over his face, tugged at his nose, scratched his forehead, massaged a palm around his eyes, groaned in frustration, continued rubbing until it started to heart. He dropped his hand and opened his eyes into blurriness.

He felt pathetic, so pathetic he couldn’t even turn his body to lay on his side. He didn’t even want to feel himself, feel the fact that he had a body, that he existed. He dropped his hand, put an end to his stubborn attempts at wiping his eyes, kept them open, and didn’t move anymore. If he remained immobile for long enough, maybe he’d forget he had a body.

But it didn’t work. Jongin’s nose twitched with every breath he dragged in, his eyes blinked and blinked and cried and blinked, his lips were pressed together but whenever he was starting to quiet down, their corners pulled up, deceiving their shape into a smile that wasn’t one. Smiles weren’t supposed to feel wet, weren’t supposed to make him start crying all over again. The prospect that most of his smiles were of this kind made his eyes burn even more.

He stayed like that for an unmeasured amount of time, rigidified by the emotions melting through his eyes. It came in waves. He didn’t cry that much. Just in waves. His eyes were starting to hurt. And it was his fault. Because it came from him. Because there was nothing else going wrong in his life. The corners of his lips rode up again, his cheeks solidifying into rocks, and he rubbed an eye again to prevent it from leaking, his palm digging into his eye harshly when the door abruptly opened.

His soft gasp didn’t erase his mother’s voice calling his name and suddenly Jongin wished he’d at least had the strength to get under his covers, where he would’ve been able to hide.

"Are you crying?" was the question that made Jongin glad he wasn’t under his covers. The shame settling upon him mashed him enough, he didn’t need additional weight.

"No," he said, instantly sniffing and wiping away any wetness with the back of his hand. He sat up, cleared his throat, looked down at the loose thread standing up crooked on the seam of his jeans.

He didn’t look at his mother, didn’t hear her say anything for a moment, until she started advancing into the room. Jongin closed his eyes for a moment, despising himself even more. It was already bad enough that he felt this way and then he had to go and let his mom see it. He should’ve been more careful, should’ve heard the entrance door opening, should’ve prevented her from seeing this embarrassing side of him.

She hadn’t seen him cry since he was a child, Jongin didn’t even remember the last time that had happened, but when she sat down on his bed, near him, and he chanced a single glance up at her, he knew she’d never looked so awkward back then. Her eyebrows were furrowed, their shape softened by worry. She was holding a hand in front of her, hovering it between them. It took an achingly long moment for it to land on his knee.

"Are you okay?" she asked, each of her words quieted down by concern but lengthened by how long it had been since she’d last asked this question to him.

Jongin cleared his throat again, frowned to make himself look tougher, nodded his head a bit too strongly. He didn’t like her hand on his knee, not in this context. He didn’t like the way she was looking at him. He didn’t like how concerned she looked. He didn’t like this feeling, this sudden shift into disgrace. He hadn’t felt this way when Chanyeol had been in the one sitting in front of him.

But this wasn’t Chanyeol, this wasn’t a friend. This was his mother.

"Yeah," he said, repeating the same word once more when he realized he’d taken too long to answer. "Yeah, I’m okay."

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked, after another heavy beat of prickling silence.

He looked at her. Her eyes were jumping between his. He could still feel a bit of wetness under his eye but wiping it would make everything look worse. He’d never wanted to worry her.

"No, I’m fine," he assured, shaking his head, clearing his throat once more, scratching the side of his neck with two fingers. He looked down, glanced back up at her. "Really."

"You can tell me anything," she said instantly, so quickly. She sounded so convinced. Jongin wasn’t. Her whole body looked rigid, her lips were parted. She didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t used to emotions between them. There was always only laughter, no real emotional happenings. It made Jongin want to cry more. The two miserable pats she gave his knee were a good enough distraction. "You can tell me anything, as long you do well– are well. That’s all that matters."

A sound left Jongin’s lips, an airy exhale, shaky in its confusion between a laugh and a sob. She’d tripped, slipped. She was so used to it. Saying _do_ well, rather than _be_ well.

He pressed his lips together, looked down, frowned until he felt like his eyes were squished on his face, cleared his throat twice in a row, rattling the cries away from his mouth. He wanted her to leave. He didn’t need this, didn’t need the reminder. That he had to do well. That it was all that truly mattered.

"No," he said, voice clearer now. He just needed her to leave. "I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’m okay," he repeated, words slow and firm but mushing together in Jongin’s head. He hadn’t said all of this to her in a very long time. Because it never really mattered.

And as if that was the only thing she wanted to hear, her hand slipped away from his knee.

"Alright then," she said and when he heard just how concerned her voice sounded, the slight tinge of sadness in it, Jongin realized that he really, really just needed her to leave right now. "I’ll leave you alone then. I’ll call when dinner’s ready."

He nodded again but this time, coupled it with a hum. He didn’t think he’d be able to get anything else out for now without letting appear that the only thing she’d done was shatter his insides even more. It felt uneasy, totally uneasy, right in his chest, like something was wrong, like something was threatening to sing him down from inside. Just abatement.

He didn’t look at her as she stood up and left. He didn’t want to see how awkward this was, didn’t want to realize that his own mother didn’t know what to do to comfort him. He knew she loved him. She was his mother. But she’d looked like she wanted to leave this room as quick as he had wanted her to. At least, he thought, she hadn’t gotten angry at him for crying with no reason. That used to happen a lot when he was much younger.

And when the door closed behind him, Jongin didn’t even have the occasion to feel his lips curving up into that painful deceptive smile before a sob escaped him in the shape of three choppy exhaled through the nose.

He didn’t know how long it lasted. At some point, he managed to get himself under his blankets. It felt uncomfortable to be in bed with his jeans on. He didn’t care, he couldn’t really care when he had a hard time just being. Putting comfortable clothes on wouldn’t change that. His mother looking at him with awkward concern wouldn’t change that. It only worsened it.

On a gap between two fits of quaky breaths, Jongin found himself wishing he was outside. He would’ve had more chances of bumping into Chanyeol. It was pathetic of him to wish a stranger would hug him. He was still a stranger. The switch from stranger to friend wasn’t that easy to make. But the switch from solitude to consolation was easily achievable when Chanyeol was there.

But he wasn’t and Jongin wished he was with every miserable second he spent alone in his bed. He hated what he’d become. He hated the fact that he’d once been a man at peace with the emotions he felt, unashamed of them. He wasn’t anymore. He wasn’t and he hated it and he wished Chanyeol was there, he wished it so hard for so long that when he tightened his blanket’s hug around his body, he could close his eyes and throw himself back to that moment.

If he imagined it hard enough, his own bed could become Chanyeol’s embrace, his own silence could be the one Chanyeol shared with him, the weight of his own arm hugging his waist could morph into Chanyeol’s hold around him.

He imagined it so hard, he felt it so clearly, Jongin didn’t open his dried eyes again from fear of shattering the ghost of the embrace he felt on his exhausted body.

When Jongin woke up, he realized that he’d fallen asleep.

He hadn’t intended to and for a moment, a cold panic breezed through him. He hadn’t completed his homework for tomorrow, he didn’t even remember eating, he didn’t even know what time it was. He pushed himself up, slipping on his elbow and crashing his shoulder against the pillow with a groan. He lay there for a short moment before attempting to rise a second time.

It took him a moment to realize that his eyes were closed but when he opened them, blinked a few times, they felt weird, hurt a little bit, and it was still pretty dark in the room. Night had fallen and Jongin had fallen before it for the first time in years. He hated naps. His eyes hated him, he could feel it by the way they were hurting. He rubbed a hand over them, carefully, then looked at the window with a noisy sigh. His head felt like too much sleep had been crammed inside it. He hadn’t pulled the blinds down, the streetlight shone a warm yellow into his eyes. He disliked the color.

His arm was starting to hurt from taking on most of his weight so he reached for his phone on the night stand, unsuccessfully fiddling his hand around for a long time. Then, the discomfort on his legs became more obvious and he remembered he hadn’t changed out of his clothes. He dropped back down on the mattress, rubbed two hands over his face this time. His face didn’t feel like it was really there. Only when he pulled his phone out of his pocket, did he feel that it had been there for hours. It hurt a little on his thigh.

He lit the screen, huffed regret when the light attacked him. He quickly fiddled to turn the luminosity down and then scrolled through his notifications for the first time since he’d left school earlier. It felt like that had happened last month, felt like it would happen again in a month from now. Jongin wasn’t sure where he stood on the concept of time, wasn’t sure he was even part of that reality. What he knew was that it sucked to receive so many messages from his friends asking if he was okay and what he was doing.

He read the same question many times from many names, barely comprehended notifications from various group chats, and started feeling nauseous. Not in his stomach but in his head, there were too many people and the more he realized he had to reply to these people at one point, the foggier it was starting to feel, right behind his eyes. He put his phone down face first on the bed. He had forgotten to look at the time. He didn’t have the courage to lift the device and take another look. He knew that it was late enough for him to hear his father snoring faintly. He listened to it, because he had no choice, because it was something that he heard every night and it was a bit grounding.

Until he heard his name.

He turned his head towards the door, eyebrows furrowing. His eyes really hurt. That sucked. It really sucked how he had to be reminded that he had cried for way too long like an idiot who couldn’t control his feelings. Jongin from a month ago would punch him if he heard these thoughts. Jongin from a month ago would never call crying stupid or shameful. He heard his name a second time and his head snapped to the other side, to the window.

Not letting his thoughts distract him again, he remained unmoving and listened closely. He certainly hoped he was starting to lose his mind because that would explain many things. But then he heard a shrill impact against the window and he jumped out of bed, disorientation multiplying.

He looked out of the window, not even having the occasion to feel harassed by the streetlight right on the other side when he saw Chanyeol standing right there. He had something in his hands. It took Jongin a blank moment to figure out that Chanyeol was actually standing there, had been the one to call his name, and had thrown a tiny rock at his window. Jongin didn’t know that happened in real life. He wasn’t sure this was real life. Chanyeol looked too small from over there for it to be real.

But it was proved real when Chanyeol gestured at him to come down with his hand and then threw another rock at the window when Jongin showed no reaction. He jumped back when the stone crashed somewhere on the window. Chanyeol’s smile was tainted orange from the street light. Half of his face was shadowed but Jongin could clearly see the corner of his lips tugging his cheek up, found it a little funny that the ear closest to the light looked enflamed from it. The amusementon Chanyeol’s face wasn’t something strangers gave to each other.

As he stood there, in front of his window, looking down at a guy who was asking to see him in the middle of the night by throwing stones at his window, Jongin wondered why he was so hung on making the both of them out as strangers.

When Chanyeol threatened to throw another stone at him by raising his hand, Jongin raised the both of his and made a vague gesture that he hoped Chanyeol would interpret as a request for him to silently wait there.

He moved away from the window, looked around for a moment, unsure what to do. No one ever called him in the middle of the night, certainly not this way.

He looked down at himself, pretty glad that he was still wearing his clothes, then made his way out of the room. Jongin wasn’t necessarily a loud person but he tried to be so quiet that it felt like the journey from his room to the entrance door took the whole night.

When he closed the door behind him with minimal noise and turned around, Chanyeol’s smile woke him up as much as daybreak would’ve in the morning – with no blinds to protect his sleep. He was glad he hadn’t pulled them down.

"What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" Jongin asked, genuinely confused.

He stepped closer to Chanyeol, crossing his arms over his chest. He should’ve taken a jacket on his way out. It was Chanyeol’s fault. He had destabilized him. He was still destabilizing him, as he made tiny stones rain from his palm and splatter on the ground in a beady choir. He didn’t look one bit sleepy or tired. Jongin hadn’t seen himself on his way out but he knew how bad he looked right after waking up.

Raising a hand to run it through his hair, he carefully looked at Chanyeol. The silence between them was stretching on for too long but Jongin didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do in this context. It was usually always him who ran into Chanyeol, who found Chanyeol. It was never Chanyeol who came to fetch him, pull him out of his bed.

He was glad he did. Jongin didn’t feel safe in his bed anymore. He’d cried so much in there, he feared one day he would drown against his own pillow.

"It’s not even that late," was Chanyeol’s late reply.

The wind blew over them, Jongin watched a few strands of Chanyeol’s hair shake. He always had the same hairstyle. Jongin did too but he never styled it, Chanyeol _always_ had it styled this way. The dedication amazed him. That dedication wasn’t the only thing that amazed him in Chanyeol, even if he wasn’t sure he could name something else yet. Jongin struggled with naming things nowadays.

Chanyeol took a step closer to him, half a step, Jongin wasn’t sure, he couldn’t look away from Chanyeol’s face. The shadows laying on his features, the perkiness of his eyes as he looked at Jongin, it all gave him an unreal dimension. Jongin should touch him to check if he was real. Maybe a hug would help with that. But there was already a touch of somberness on Chanyeol’s face and it wasn’t laid down there by the shadows and the night.

"Is something wrong?" Jongin couldn’t help but ask because no matter how much he stared at Chanyeol, he couldn’t figure anything out.

Chanyeol shook his head, pressed his lips together, pulled them up enough for shadows to sink into a dimple. It looked abysmal. Not like a hole – like time.

"Is something wrong for you?" Chanyeol asked and Jongin noticed then that he had this particular way of speaking.

Maybe it was because of the complete silence around them, maybe it was because Jongin was studying him harder than ever to figure out if this was real. Chanyeol spoke about everything lightly, with that intonation, not a chirpiness but a carefreeness in his voice. Like no one could ever teach him anything, like he already knew whatever he was asking, like he was always one step ahead of Jongin. Like time.

That didn’t make Jongin feel like he was lacking. It made him feel like he was seen, bared. There was no shame. Maybe Jongin had spent it all earlier today, had ran out of it.

It made him want to speak, to reply, but there was nothing to say. He knew there was something wrong, he knew there was something deeply wrong, but he didn’t know what it was. He watched Chanyeol blink, felt the hair on his arms stand against the wind, wondered if Chanyeol had the answer Jongin lacked.

Chanyeol turned his head, looked to his left for an insignificant moment, shadows sculpting his cheek and eyebrow. There was something about this shitty light all around them. Something that made Jongin realize things, made him realize that Chanyeol looked good in this lighting, made him realize that Chanyeol just looked good under any and all lightings.

"Are you okay?" he asked again once he was back to looking at Jongin who pressed his lips together tight.

Because there was something about Chanyeol’s voice that blanketed him from the cold he had pulled Jongin into. Then, Jongin parted his lips. Because it was night, it was only Chanyeol and him and this orange light that beautified his strange friend.

"No," he confessed.

There was a pair of ears to hear that answer but it wasn’t destined to them. It was something Jongin admitted to himself, openly. He didn’t need another question to speak.

"I’m sad. I’m always sad. Sometimes, I don’t know why. Tonight, I know why. I needed a little bit of comfort, really, that was all. But my mom came and found me in that miserable state and sat in front of me and patted my knee and told me that all that mattered was that I did well." His words were mashed together, running out of his mouth, breaching through a confined space that had been inescapable until then and there was no way Jongin would be able to stop them. "And I know it. I know she wants me to do well. But I’m doing well and she never acknowledges it and only ever asks of me to do well and no matter how well I do she still asks me to do well and I know, I really do, she doesn’t have to always say it because I know."

Half of his breath had left him with those words. He wasn’t panting by the time he was done shooting his thoughts out but he felt like he’d been running for too long and he needed to stop and focus on his breathing for a while. He took a deep breath in, freezing it in for a moment, before blowing it all out again. Speaking had never tired him out this much.

Chanyeol had silently listened through it all, without a single shift in his expression. Jongin found it uncharacteristic. He always moved something on his face.

Then, Chanyeol parted his lips and Jongin’s gaze crashed to the first sign of movement. The shade of his lips was alluring in some way Jongin couldn’t explain. He couldn’t take his gaze off them, not until Chanyeol’s first word.

"You’re doing well, Jongin." His gaze snapped up to his eyes. It was the first time Chanyeol pronounced his name. It was ridiculous, Jongin had been called thousands of times. There was no reason for it to give him the urge to wimpier miserably. "You’re doing enough."

Or maybe it wasn’t his name. Maybe it was the way CHanyeol stared into his eyes, the softness at the end of his sentences, the finality. The certainty.

He reached out to Jongin. His arms were so cold, he could barely feel Chanyeol’s hands when they held onto them. And yet, Jongin’s skin felt more at peace on his body than ever.

"You’re very hardworking," Chanyeol said, tilting his head down. He didn’t look so small anymore. "And you’re doing enough. And sure, what she thinks matters but not that much. What matters the most is you. Your happiness. You’re what matters, above everything else. Always. Don’t be so hard on yourself because she’s hard on you. You’re always doing better than you have to."

It was an off feeling. Jongin had pronounced those same exact words to so many people in his life. He swallowed, once, twice when it didn’t feel enough to unclog the emotion in his throat. It didn’t feel bad, for once. He’d never thought he needed to hear that until now. Chanyeol was still looking into his eyes, the light around them was a dirty orange but his gaze was clear, earnest. Jongin had never heard those words before. It felt nice.

It felt even better to replay them in his head while Chanyeol’s hands slid back and pulled him forward, into a hug. Jongin’s eyes closed as soon as his chin came in contact with Chanyeol’s shoulder, his body unraveled and everything vanished, like it had all been a stubborn complaint and was tamed down as soon as it had gotten what it truly wanted. This second hug mended him together as much as the first one had. It wasn’t a tight hold, Chanyeol wasn’t squeezing, wasn’t confining him, he was just holding him together and that was all that Jongin needed.

Belatedly, he raised his hands to wrap them around Chanyeol’s waist, tilted his head to press his nose against his shoulder, whispered a _thank you_ and hoped that Chanyeol could hear in it everything else he wanted to say. He just couldn’t say it, because he didn’t know how to express it, didn’t know if he’d be able to do it without letting emotions get to him.

Jongin didn’t feel small against Chanyeol, he felt secure. Maybe it was because he felt like Chanyeol was hanging onto him just as much as he did, because he could feel his head on his shoulder too. Jongin sincerely hoped that if Chanyeol ever felt sad, this hug would do to him the same exact thing it did to Jongin. Give him a little bit of solace.

"You should go back to sleep," Chanyeol whispered then and Jongin nodded but didn’t let go of him, wasn’t let go of either. He had a lot of sleep to catch up on. Being tired all the time from sleep deprivation only worsened the way he was feeling. "You have class tomorrow," Chanyeol said after a silent moment and this time, he’d convinced someone to let go.

Jongin wasn’t sure about who pulled away first but he didn’t regret the embrace when Chanyeol smiled at him that way. In a way that Jongin felt no one had ever smiled at him. Open. It was an open smile and as Jongin looked from one corner of it to the other, it felt like his eyes were going through a long journey of healing.

He stepped back, never looking away from Chanyeol. He could walk backward to the house, but that would be weird. This felt too short. This encounter felt too short, too ephemeral in its beauty. Jongin still wasn’t sure it was real. But it was too short and he didn’t want it to end but it had to end and that didn’t mean he couldn’t have a replay of it.

"Do you want to come over tomorrow evening, after class?" The question was out of his mouth before he even realized it. He didn’t regret it. "My parents won’t be home."

He shouldn’t ask. He had a lot of homework to catch up on. He shouldn’t have asked it that way, he thought then. His teeth sunk into his lips. That wording had sounded very wrong.

Chanyeol realized it at the same time, except while Jongin thought of how to right it, he laughed instead. Short, hearty, as warm as the light that illuminated it.

"If I didn’t know your intentions were pure, I’d say this was the least smooth sentence I’ve ever heard," he said and suddenly, the teasing shadows around his mouth made him very real. He’d seen it before.

"That’s not what I meant," Jongin rushed to explain. He was too sensitive to treat it as a joke at the moment.

"I know, no need to be offended. I got you," Chanyeol said, softening his smile into a molten curve. "I’ll be there tomorrow evening."

Jongin stood there for a moment, then nodded. Chanyeol would be there tomorrow evening.

He wanted to smile but feared that he’d unwillingly give Chanyeol one of those treacherous ones. He hadn’t cried and he wouldn’t mind crying, at this point, but he didn’t want to. He wanted this memory to be happy.

It was. Chanyeol made it so by smiling in his stead.

Jongin forced himself to turn around and go back home. It took him a while to fall asleep but this time, it wasn’t because he felt like he was buried underground.

"What does this word mean?"

Jongin looked up from his laptop and turned his head to Chanyeol. He was still there. Jongin knew, and yet every time he looked at him, he still found it unbelievable. Not the fact that Chanyeol was sitting next to him on the bed, holding one of Jongin’s poetry books, his legs stretching farther than Jongin’s did on the mattress, but the fact that he was here _because_ last night had happened.

He leaned to look at the word the tip of Chanyeol’s finger was touching on the page. Their shoulders pressed together, he could feel the toughness of its shape. It was pretty comfortable to sit in bed with Chanyeol. And for some reason, it was pretty adorable that Chanyeol was asking what a complicated English word meant.

"It means ‘melt’," he answered after a short moment of humming. Translations always came late in his head, one reason why he didn’t regret not taking an English major. He had a friend who studied it and had two translation classes per week. Jongin would die.

Chanyeol hummed, nodding his head to its slow rhythm. Jongin looked up at him, he could pull away, but he didn’t. He was tired, that was what he justified himself with. Chanyeol’s lips still had a pretty shade without streetlights shining upon them.

Jongin pulled away at that thought and looked back down at his screen. He just had to finish this quick outline and the text would be wrapped up. It was already getting late enough, he was tired of working and it had taken him too long already. He had a distraction that was very efficient despite its general silence.

But he wouldn’t blame Chanyeol. Jongin had been working for half of their time spent together, after a few video game rounds, and not once had Chanyeol complained or even sighed to show boredom. He’d just silently been by Jongin’s side while he studied, reading a book. They hadn’t talked about last night at all. The second hint as to it being real was the very awkward conversation he had with his mother this morning, he had to smile widely and reassure her for five minutes straight. He was glad his parents wouldn’t be home until tomorrow.

"People who speak several languages are pretty hot."

Jongin stared at his screen for an additional empty moment, just like he’d been uselessly staring at it for a while now. When he turned his head to Chanyeol, his gaze was laid on the inked pages.

He huffed a laugh out. That was for him. That sentence was destined to him, pronounced for him. At this point, Jongin had decided to stop acting like it was all in his head.

"You speak as many languages as I do, don’t you?" he asked, halfway curious.

He had never really asked him if he spoke Korean. Jongin found it weird to speak anything but French with his friends, it was difficult even with Jongdae, felt alien on his tongue whenever he was out of his house.

"Yeah," Chanyeol shrugged, shoulder bumping into Jongin’s. He’d pulled away. Chanyeol had gotten closer. It was almost impressive, how a smile so small could flash out so much confidence. "I’m aware that I’m pretty hot, thanks."

Chanyeol really liked to talk about how hot he was. Even if the twitchy eyebrows ruined the image right away and Jongin laughed, pushing him away with a weak hand.

With a huff, Chanyeol looked down and continued reading. Jongin didn’t look away from him, didn’t realize he was smiling until he bit his lower lip and found the skin of it stretched. He wondered if Chanyeol was also aware that this was one of the best moments of his life. Him, just working on school stuff, studying, while someone was right beside him, reading one of the many poetry books he owned.

Jongin hadn’t felt so at peace in his own bed in a long time. He looked back down and continued typing on his computer, looking at the time through the blur brought to his eyes when he yawned. It was getting late and tiring.

He still focused, it wasn’t that hard. Surprisingly, doing his homework was a bit easier with Chanyeol by his side. maybe it was because he was motivating himself by telling himself that he was happy with the way things were, with the situation he was in at the moment. That helped. He hadn’t thought such things in a while.

He only had one axis left to complete, he only needed to find enough ideas. He could make it vague enough, just an outline, it didn’t matter that much because he wasn’t going to make a presentation, they would just discuss it with the teacher in class.

Halfway through a thought about gothic literature, Chanyeol interrupted him by shoving Jongin’s own tiny teddy bear into his face. He splattered and tried to grab it from Chanyeol who was laughing way too hard, all because of a teddy bear Jongin had thought he’d hidden well underneath his pillow. It wasn’t offensive, just made him laugh a lot, until he snatched the tiny teddy bear from Chanyeol and hit his shoulder with it.

Chanyeol redeemed himself by grabbing it back and studying it while muttering a _it’s pretty cute_ under his breath. His voice was prettier, Jongin thought. But he didn’t say it out loud, just smiled as Chanyeol sat the teddy bear on his tummy and grabbed the book back just like that. Jongin snorted at how abruptly his disturbing session ended and focused back on his task, jaw jerking with a few twitches when his lips ripped open into another yawn. He focused right back and didn’t look away from the screen again.

The next time Jongin’s eyes found Chanyeol again, he didn’t even remember when he’d closed them.

He blinked, once, twice, yawned, blinked again and frowned at the length of Chanyeol’s lashes. They were pretty long. He’d never noticed. He’d never had to stare at his lashes. But now, with Chanyeol sleeping there, right beside him, head tilted back, he had nothing to do but stare at Chanyeol.

He brought a hand up, scratched at his cheek, didn’t take his eyes off him. He had no idea when they’d fallen asleep, who’d fallen asleep first. Maybe him. He would’ve remembered seeing Chanyeol asleep. With his lips parted, his hair messing up a little at the back, his nose twitching from time to time, he looked realer than ever. Jongin felt happier than ever, by his side. There was something tender about Chanyeol falling asleep by his side.

His eyes traced the bridge of his nose, picked up on the mole somewhere along, rode back up to the outer tip of his eyebrow, observed the puffiness of his cheek when his jaw was left relaxed. Jongin liked this image. He liked Chanyeol sleeping in his bed and him being able to look at him. He was a very, very nice image to look at. A really pretty one. Jongin had no idea how something as mundane as eyelashes could look so entrancing.

With another deep inhalation, Jongin’s head cleared up a little bit. He could wake Chanyeol up, he probably should wake Chanyeol up. But he looked so peaceful, even with his body only half laid down, his back still supported against bed’s headboard. And Jongin felt at peace with not being alone in his bed, felt very comfortable with Chanyeol sleeping beside him. He didn’t even need to remember falling asleep to know his body had slid into slumber more easily.

Jongin should probably not share a bed with someone he didn’t know that much. But he felt like Chanyeol knew him better than anyone else in his life at the moment.

Instead of waking him up, he grabbed the book that was tilted halfway between Chanyeol’s thigh and the mattress, watching him with care to make sure he wouldn’t awake him. He didn’t want to wake him up at all. He put the book on his bedside table then closed his laptop’s lid. It had slid off his lap and was resting against his leg, on the mattress. Jongin was relieved it hadn’t fallen on the other side, off the bed. He carefully put it on the floor then looked at the window, contemplating for a moment. He glanced at Chanyeol then carefully got up to pull the blinds down. He didn’t want the sun to disturb them in the morning.

Chanyeol looked good on his bed even from afar, like a part of it, like he was made to be there or Jongin’s bed was actually Chanyeol’s bed and Jongin had merely kept it safe all his life until his arrival.

When Jongin returned to bed, he laid down properly. He could spend one more night sleeping in uncomfortable jeans if it meant everything else around him was perfect. He fluffed his pillow, closed his eyes as he settled and stretched his legs, snapped them open when he felt his knee knocking against Chanyeol’s leg.

Chanyeol’s head turned to him, his legs stretching for a moment. His eyes remained closed and Jongin’s breath remained locked in his throat as he watched him move, sliding down the bed, hand pulling the pillow down so he could properly rest his head on it. He wasn’t touching Jongin, just laying very close to him, facing him, sleeping beside him, and yet, Jongin felt a warmth in his presence, felt it envelop him whole, fold over him, hide him from everything else.

He closed his weary eyes and thought about it, thought that this felt exactly like what he’d want to keep him company him on nights when he couldn’t see anything past the blur in his eyes.

In the morning, Jongin closed his eyes back as soon as he opened them. The other side of the bed was empty and for the first time ever, he didn’t like seeing it.

He turned to lay on his back, stretched his arms and his legs until he heard and felt a big toe cracking. He let his arms fall on top of him with a sound that married a sigh and a yawn. He kept his eyes on the ceiling and didn’t turn his head.

Chanyeol had left. He didn’t know what time it was but he could see slivers of light on the few openings on the blinds. He didn’t know when Chanyeol had left but he hadn’t felt it and his lip pursed a little, unable to hide its disappointment.

But Chanyeol didn’t owe him anything. Maybe it was a little rude to disappear like that and leave someone’s house in the morning without a word. He wasn’t sure, he didn’t feel upset or angry. Just regretful. Though, he supposed Chanyeol hadn’t even intended to sleep over and had things to do. He had a life outside of talking to Jongin in his down moments.

He finally turned his head to the left. He could still see Chanyeol laying right there, could still feel how fitting it had felt to have him there, could still remember how easy it had been to fall asleep, without evening intending to. Jongin knew it had been his best night of sleep in a while from how content he felt despite Chanyeol leaving like that.

He grabbed his phone, finally took a look at the time. His parents would be home soon. Maybe it was a good thing Chanyeol wasn’t here anymore. Not really. He had to get ready for class. He hated having to go to class for a mere two hours, but it didn’t really make him feel as bad as it usually would. He didn’t feel as bad as he usually did.

Chanyeol had left early but he remained with Jongin throughout the whole day, through the lightness in his chest, the happiness in his head.

"Jongin? Would that work for you?"

Jongin looked up from Lisa’s shoulder and at her face instead. He had no idea how long he’d been staring at her shoulder but judging by the way everyone was attentively looking at him, he figured it had been a while since he’d stopped paying attention to what they were talking about. He didn’t even remember what he’d heard last.

He’d been thinking about the length of Chanyeol’s lashes. He was still pretty amazed by how literal hair could look so delicate. Maybe there was something _truly_ wrong with Jongin.

"Yeah, sure," he said, voice stretching into hesitation as he looked at everyone.

Lucas snorted and pushed his shoulder suddenly enough for Jongin to lose his balance a little. That guy needed to stop working out or at least, stop trying to get Jongin to work out with him. That would be great too.

"Why are you acting like you know what we’re talking about?" he teased Jongin who huffed at him.

"How can I listen to you when your voice is so annoying?" he threw back, laughing right away when Olivia cheered at him with a loud and stretched sound of approval.

"I take back the invitation," Lucas said, feigning offense by widening his eyes and bobbing his head weirdly while talking. "You’re not coming with us to work on the essay."

"The one about the book we had to read?" Jongin asked, looking at Lisa for confirmation. She nodded his head and Jongin pursed his lips.

Jongin thought they still had two weeks to write it. He didn’t like essays, he preferred conversing about books directly rather than using flowery formulations and one-sided analysis.

He turned to Lucas again, stepping closer to him when someone made their way into the crowd gathered in front of the classroom to reach the stairs. This building’s hallways were too narrow.

"Did you even read the book?" he questioned Lucas with a raise of his eyebrows, just to chaff him a little further.

Lucas let out a theatrical gasp. "You’re really not gonna be allowed to work with us."

"We would literally die without Jongin," Lisa intervened with a laugh.

Jongin scrunched his face at her.

"True," Mark spoke up, eyes still downcast on his phone. Jongin should definitely ask him who he was constantly messaging. And why he hadn’t come to class for the past three days. He’d do it tonight. "We need Jongin’s brain. Mine’s already fried from reading that book."

"Your brain has always been fried though," Olivia said in the most casual tone, pulling everyone to laugh at Mark who only worsened his case by grimacing in obvious agreement.

A smile lingered on Jongin’s lips. They always told him that he was very helpful for homework. It made him feel really useful and happy to be able to help them, even if he never really did much. They just worked well as a group. And they also worked bad as a group because they took too many breaks and goofed around too much.

"Are you okay though?" Lisa asked then, as Lucas, Mark, and Olivia continued arguing about braincells and fandom memes. What a bunch of nerds. Jongin knew they would soon start talking about who would win a fight between Okoye and Valkyrie. A braincell fight.

Lisa wasn’t listening to the entertainment though, she was looking at him with a steady worry in her eyes. Jongin nodded energetically and smiled at her. She must’ve noticed how much he spaced out, not only today but nowadays.

"Yeah, I’m good," he said and for once, he meant it. He truly meant it. He’d slept well last night. Hadn’t struggled to get out of bed. Didn’t feel like going right back to it either. "Don’t worry," he assured her.

She looked at him for a silent moment and Jongin looked back at her until she believed him.

"Alright then," she said and Jongin reached to pat her head arm to show his appreciation. It did mean a lot that she asked.

If it had been another day, he had a feeling he would’ve spilled everything right then and there. And he knew Lisa would’ve comforted him, talked to him, listened. But he truly was okay. And he didn’t want to ruin it by thinking about the times he wasn’t okay.

Lisa didn’t insist. She’d already told Jongin many times that she’d be there if he needed to talk, she said it every time Jongin was there when she needed to talk. They both knew and Jongin was grateful enough for that.

The teacher arrived then, only five minutes late, and they all let her pass before getting closer to the door. As they went inside one by one, Jongin asked on a whim if they’d like to eat all together tonight, once this class ended.

Mark’s hand shot up for pizza right away and they all laughed as they moved to their usual seats. Jongin hadn’t had pizza in a while, hadn’t felt this good in a while either. Enough to miss hanging out with his friends and feel content with it happening.

The next day, Jongin couldn’t bring himself to study in his house. There was just something constricting about that place when he was alone in it with no one but his parents. Or just his mother. His father was always away working and went to bed early and Jongin was very happy with that situation.

But his mother hadn’t shared the feeling this morning, eyeing him for having gotten home after midnight on a weekday. After eating, he and his friends had decided to go to Lisa’s apartment to watch a movie and hang out further. There’d been beer but nobody had gotten drunk on anything but laughter and stomach cramps. There was nothing wrong about that, they didn’t even have class until late in the afternoon that day. He really would love more freedom. Or more understanding. More adjustment. Not being the one to do the adjustment.

Instead, his mother had made it a point to show him that she was displeased only to give him the whole _I’m worried about you_ speech afterwards. Jongin felt its burden encrusting his feet as he left the house. He needed to study a little but he wouldn’t be able to do it at home so he’d decided to head towards the usual café. As he left the house, he thought about actually walking there instead of taking the tram like he usually did. It would take less than twenty minutes and it would be very healthy.

But he was being delusional. Jongin disliked walking and the farthest he was willing to go was to the tram stop.

When he spotted Chanyeol sitting on the bench from afar, the rocks in his shoes splintered into hurried feet.

They hadn’t seen each other since Chanyeol had slept over. Jongin hadn’t seen anything pleasant in himself since last night when he’d arrived home drained out. As he got closer to Chanyeol, his lips curved up like a happy habit.

Chanyeol had spotted him too as he advanced and when Jongin was close enough to him, he slid on the bench to make room for him. Jongin sprawled the lightness of his body next to him.

"What are you doing here?" was what he greeted Chanyeol with.

He still looked as nice as the last time they’d seen each other. Jongin was surprised to notice that the first thing he stared at on his face was the eyelashes. Chanyeol turned his head away from him, directing the halo of his smile straight in front of him. Jongin studied the curve of his eyelashes for a moment. He liked this angle, it made them even more apparent, easier to look at.

Chanyeol didn’t look handsome only when Jongin was sad or happy. It didn’t come as a surprise. He was handsome even when Jongin was hanging between the two extremes, he found Jongin even when he was wandering somewhere in the middle ground.

"Just hanging out," Chanyeol answered, shrugging with his eyebrows. He turned to Jongin again. "What about you? It’s weird to see you at a tram stop without playing games or reading poems."

Jongin huffed half of a laugh out. "You disturbed my plans," he said, even if that was a lie.

Nowadays, Jongin’s plans were nothing but wandering out and running into Chanyeol. That was what he hoped would happen whenever he went outside.

Chanyeol arched his eyebrows upwards, scoffing. "I was here first. Maybe you’re the one disturbing my plans."

A woman passed in front of them, pushing her stroller. Jongin heard the tenderly high laugh of a baby but didn’t look away from Chanyeol. He pursed his lips into a sour shape instead when the woman stopped to light a cigarette. He stared back at him, both of them falling silent and immobile until Chanyeol was the first one to decompose his offended expression into a laugh. Jongin followed soon after, laughing both because Chanyeol’s mock angry face looked more ridiculous the more he stared at it, but mostly out of exhilaration. He hadn’t expected them to be awkward after Chanyeol had left without a word in the morning but he was still relieved to see that they weren’t. Maybe they should be. He wasn’t sure, he didn’t really care.

He really had spent a good time that day, that night, and Jongin missed it. As weird as it was, he missed it. He never really missed friends in such a short span of time but he missed Chanyeol and that realization was enough for him to blurt his next words out.

"Would you like to come over to hang out tonight?" he asked, words gradually slowing down as he assimilated them.

Chanyeol tilted his head to the side a little bit. Jongin looked away from him, watching a man pass by amidst the rails with his kick scooter. Jongin’s thoughts formed faster than the time it took the man to disappear at the corner of the street. His parents would be home tonight. Jongin ended class late. They’d be home by the time he’d be done.

"You really like hanging out with me?"

Jongin’s gaze snapped at Chanyeol. That could’ve been a teasing question, he could’ve used that drippy tone he often used whenever he was talking about Jongin enjoying being with him or the fact that he found himself attractive. But it wasn’t. Chanyeol was looking at him with his lips relaxed into a lack of smile, his gaze clear and curious. Or maybe not. The tilt of his head, the slight deformation of his eyebrows – maybe it was confusion rather than curiosity.

A tram rang its bell as it approached from the other side, gradually slowing down on the stop across from them.

"I do," Jongin answered, raising his hands to tighten the scarf around his neck when the wind blew. He wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

He heard the tram approaching, to their side this time, but didn’t move, didn’t look away from Chanyeol, didn’t pay attention to anything but the silence weaving them together.

Chanyeol’s lips fell open. Jongin’s eyes fell to them way too eagerly. He closed them, opened them again.

"Does it make you happy?" he asked, voice so low the boisterous closing of the train’s doors could’ve overpowered it. It drove away, leaving them behind. Jongin didn’t mind being left behind with Chanyeol by his side.

But Jongin had heard it and that question was unfamiliar. It sounded alien to his ears, no one ever asked that to him. He was certain there were few people who asked that question to each other.

He didn’t need to think for too long to answer, he didn’t keep it in too long either. There was still no shame.

"It does," he said, looking down, however. His hands were fiddling with the two hanging extremities of his scarf. It did, but maybe Chanyeol shouldn’t come over, couldn’t come over. Jongin didn’t dare looking at him as he had those thoughts, he hated that he had those thoughts, instead his eyes fell to the holes on his knees. His parents wouldn’t approve of ripped clothing. Maybe they should hang out now, hang out outside. "But I should’ve thought more before asking that question. I just remembered that my parents will be home actually and I…"

"You don’t have that great of a relationship with them," Chanyeol picked up where Jongin trailed off.

Jongin looked at him, lips parted but a barrier he couldn’t break keeping his own words in. That was it. That all came down to it. If he had a good relationship with his parents, they would say something about Chanyeol’s ripped jeans and Jongin would roll his eyes at them and crack a joke and they’d all laugh about it and that would be the end of it. If Jongin brought Chanyeol home while they could see it, his father would make him a lengthy speech about bad frequentations and his mother would spend the entire week worrying and reminding him to do good and Jongin frankly didn’t have the strength to put himself through that.

It had already happened too much in the past, he’d made sure that it wouldn’t happen even once since middle school.

Another tram’s groan called from afar. Chanyeol’s smile appeared faster than Jongin’s voice. It was a smile way too reassuring in its balminess for him to mind being too slow. Maybe it was the color of it, the pale rosiness of Chanyeol’s lips. The tram stop wasn’t crowded, there were a few people here and there, but it was still all Jongin could focus on. He hadn’t even heard anything else but the trams since they’d started talking.

"Leave it to me," Chanyeol said, words frivolous, lighter than the weight of his hand when it gave two taps to Jongin’s thigh.

All in all, the touch had lasted a second, Jongin barely even felt it, and yet it was enough for his body to sing in contentment. That was when Jongin learned that bodies sang a song through twists in the stomach. Not unpleasant. He didn’t think stomach twists could be pleasant. Maybe there was just something about Chanyeol that made usually unbearable things livable.

Something that made Jongin laugh at his words instead of taking concern at them.

"What do you mean ‘leave it to me’?" he questioned, unsure what the other meant. The tram came to a stop in front of them and Jongin quickly glanced at it before looking back at Chanyeol whose hand pressed at the back of his shoulder.

"You’ll see tonight," he said, pushing him a little. His push didn’t have as strong an effect on Jongin as his smile did. "Go before you miss this one too."

Jongin’s body rose from the bench but his eyes were still stuck on Chanyeol, so much that it felt like the weight of his own gaze dragged his entire body down into languidness.

"We’ll see each other tonight?" Jongin asked, taking a few steps back until he stood right in front of the open doors.

"We will," Chanyeol said, nodding vigorously before shooing him with his hands. "Get in!"

Jongin took another step back, inside the train, when he heard the doors starting to close on either side of him. He stared at Chanyeol from inside, unsure what to do or think. His cheeks solidified into a smile as soon as Chanyeol waved at him with an energetic hand. He didn’t look as confused or curious as earlier. He looked merry.

Jongin turned around and grabbed the nearest handle bar to keep himself balanced as the train drove off. His gaze fell to his shoes. They didn’t look like rock, didn’t feel like stone either. He felt much better than earlier, had taken a complete twist. He already couldn’t wait for the day to end so he could go back home and see Chanyeol again. This was odd. Chanyeol had a huge effect on him, almost worryingly so. People usually only affected Jongin into empathy, sadness whenever he talked about someone’s problems with them and felt bad for them, then did absolutely everything he could to fix the situation. And he always fixed it.

But he couldn’t fix the situation he was in and truthfully, it felt like only Chanyeol could manage to fix it. Temporarily, maybe, but he still felt much better whenever he was around Chanyeol.

And he would feel great tonight, even if he had no idea how Chanyeol was going to make it happen. Maybe he was planning to throw stones at Jongin’s window again. His parents hadn’t heard anything last time, they would’ve said something or woken up on the spot. It was a little cute that Chanyeol would do that so they could see each other.

He spent the entire journey thinking about how adorable Chanyeol was, wondering if he should maybe stop finding Chanyeol so lovely, then telling himself that it didn’t really matter. Maybe he did find Chanyeol cuter than he was supposed to find a friend but that wasn’t harmful, not to him, nor to Chanyeol. Jongin could find him adorable without ever telling him so, it wasn’t that big of a deal anyway.

He kept thinking about Chanyeol until he reached the café then forbid himself from doing it further as soon as he settled on a table with a deliciously warm chocolate. He was here to work and that was what he did for a while, reading the texts for his classes, writing general ideas about them, then thinking about the book they’d be working on together with his friends later in the week. He didn’t force himself much though, since they’d be working on it together, and instead, as soon as he was done drinking, he let his mind wander around.

The main reason why he was here was so he wouldn’t be home anyway, he didn’t have much homework to do. He never really did since he always did whatever he had to do early. Instead, he thought more about the mole on Chanyeol’s nose, his touch on his thigh, scrolled through his social media, and read a few articles until he had to leave for class.

The rest of the day was spent in a similar manner – thinking about Chanyeol.

Jongin whiled time away with the impatience of getting back home and seeing Chanyeol somewhere and sometime around that.

He laughed a lot with his friends in the tram, discussed about that one movie they should all go see together. Jongin didn’t remember what movie, he hadn’t listened to that part of the conversation but he would love seeing any movie with his friends. They settled on going this weekend and sent a message to Olivia who didn’t take the same tram line as them and Mark who hadn’t come to class yet again. Jongin felt good enough nowadays to be excited about the movie.

That excitement bubbled down when he reached home just in time for dinner. His mother and father spoke amongst themselves here and there and Jongin didn’t take part in the little amount of conversation there was besides humming or replying to his mother’s few questions about this and that. He ate quicker than usual and on his way up to his room, he rummaged in his head, wondering what he should tell his parents if he had to go out later to meet Chanyeol.

He pushed the door of his room open and time solidified in his body. Chanyeol was sprawled on the bed, holding Jongin’s tiny teddybear in his hands. The smile ripping through his feature wasn’t big enough for Jongin to feel anything but shock at first.

Rushing to step in properly and close the door behind him, he stared at the other speechlessly. Chanyeol raised the teddy bear in front of him, grabbed one of its small arms and moved it from side to side in replica to a wave.

"Hello there," he said, voice mushing up into cheesiness.

Jongin rounded his features into a laugh that was nothing but quiet air and disbelief.

"How did you even get in here?" he asked, turning around to lock the door. His mother never came to his room after dinner but better safe than sorry. "Did you climb up the window?" he asked, unable to keep stupefaction from the volume of his voice.

Chanyeol was in his room. Jongin had no idea how long he had been there for. He had no idea someone could climb the window to the first floor. He shouldn’t be surprised. He should probably be weirded out, panicked, very worried that Chanyeol had essentially broken into his house. He really should be.

But this was almost amusing. Almost fun. Jongin had never sneaked out of his house, had never sneaked anyone in either and this was fun, even if he had no part at all in Chanyeol’s sneaking in. But it still felt pretty nice, to know that Chanyeol would climb windows for him. It probably would sound very weird if he were to say it out loud though, so he kept it to himself.

"I’m pretty good at window climbing," Chanyeol said, putting the teddybear next to him on the bed. Jongin watched him seat it and try to make it keep that position despite it falling back several times. "I’ve climbed lots of them in my life," he said and that eyebrow wiggle was enough for Jongin to lose any kind of fascination in the snort that left his mouth.

"Are you some kind of fuckboy?" he questioned, stepping closer to Chanyeol. This didn’t feel weird at all.

"I’m not a nice boy, that’s for sure," he said after a long hum, turning back to the teddybear when it fell again. He sat it back up and he looked ridiculous, doing _that_ while saying _that_. Ridiculously endearing when he frowned and gave up, letting the teddy fall once and for all.

Jongin couldn’t take him seriously and judging by the way he was smiling at him, with his lips shivering as if he was trying to hold his laughter back, Chanyeol seemed unable to take himself seriously too.

With the shock gone, Jongin felt happy that Chanyeol had actually kept his promise. He hadn’t really promised anything but Jongin had thought his last words as a promise. And he’d kept it. Even if it had costed him a climbing up the window.

"How long have you even been waiting for?" he asked, walking to him until he could grab the teddybear off the bed. Chanyeol always played too much with it. Jongin liked it.

"Not that long actually," Chanyeol said, standing up with a frown as he straightened his jacket. "Maybe less than five minutes? How was your day?" he asked then, while Jongin gestured him to sit on the bed again so he could do that too.

"Pretty great," Jongin said and he meant it. It had been a pretty great day that he spent waiting to see Chanyeol. Knowing that he’d see Chanyeol made him feel almost as nice as seeing him felt. "I went to a café and studied a bit after we saw each other. Then I went to class, tried listening, laughed with friends." He shrugged, fiddling with the teddy bear while watching Chanyeol. He had that one habit of nodding his head along whenever he was listening to Jongin speak. "What about you?"

"Oh, you know," Chanyeol said, grabbing the teddybear from him again. He smiled down at it while poking its tiny nose with an oversized finger. "The main thing in my day was waiting for you. The usual."

Jongin pressed his lips together to suppress a smile. This could’ve been yet another teasing sentence. But it didn’t have the intonation Chanyeol used for that, it wasn’t cheesy, wasn’t flowing with confidence, and he wasn’t looking at Jongin with a pretentious grin. He wasn’t even looking at Jongin. It felt nice. Hearing that, it made him take a deep breath in, fill his body with contentment. Maybe he hadn’t been the only one impatient for them to see each other. It was reassuring.

"Well," Jongin said, looking down at teddy bear. He wasn’t sure the plushie’s fur was softer than the hands touching it. "We’re here now. We can do whatever you want."

Chanyeol hummed for a moment, fingers still. "We could watch a movie. I haven’t watched one of those in a while."

"Sure," Jongin perked up, remembering the conversation they had about series at the café.

Chanyeol had good taste. Any movie they’d watch together would automatically be great. Though, he wasn’t sure that had anything to do with Chanyeol’s taste in movies.

He stood up so he could grab his laptop from where it laid behind him, on the mattress. Chanyeol merely slid back until he reached the pillows, raising both of them against the wall. As Jongin settled down next to him and opened his laptop’s lid, Chanyeol reached for the book on his nightstand, the one he’d have to write an essay on.

"That looks interesting," Chanyeol said, staring at the front cover before turning it around to read the resume at the back.

The corners of his lips raised delight into the rest of his face. It was so easy for Chanyeol to make him happy, with the smallest, most insignificant things.

As Jongin gave a short resume of the story, as he watched Chanyeol open it up and read random sentences every few pages, he realized that this was his happiest moment. Then, he realized that he’d felt the same exact way last time they’d been in this situation.

That Chanyeol could turn every single moment they shared together into his happiest one.

2:23.

Jongin put his phone back down on the bedside table and untwisted his body towards Chanyeol again.

He’d woken up a short moment ago and been staring at Chanyeol ever since. While fully aware that this was creepy, even in a half slumberous state, Jongin couldn’t really help it. There was just something appeasing about opening his eyes and seeing that the darkness in his room was filled by Chanyeol’s presence. There was no light at all in the room, nothing he could see properly, and yet Jongin could feel the luminescence of Chanyeol’s presence pouring over him. It wasn’t harsh, nothing but anchoring.

It was weird for Jongin to wake up in the middle of the night for any other reason than feeling stuffed. Waking up and feeling surrounded, accompanied, was the best way to wake up, he decided while observing the parting of Chanyeol’s lips.

Chanyeol slept like he wished to become tinier. His arms weren’t wide spread around, they never really touched Jongin but that wasn’t necessary for him to really feel Chanyeol being besides him. He was laying on his stomach with his head turned to Jongin, features relaxed, eyebrows twitching from time to time. All he could see was his head, the blanket was pulled up to his chin, his body disappearing underneath. It was adorable enough for Jongin to take deep breaths in and let them out again with a saturated rhythm to it, the reflection of a laugh beating somewhere inside of him.

Then, Chanyeol rose up a little bit and Jongin felt regret pinching his lips together when he turned his body away to lay on his side instead, facing away from him. He didn’t really turn, rather than that, he threw his body around. He moved a lot and it was pretty noisy, maybe enough to have woken Jongin up were he still asleep.

Jongin liked it. He really liked it a lot. He liked waking up because of this, to this.

When he went back to sleep that night, it was with an alleviated stretch on his lips, nothing crushing his chest into stuffiness.

"No, don’t kill me!" Jongin heard in his earphones, overpowered right away by Lucas’s laughter.

His shoulders quaked with a chortle when he saw Mark’s character crumbling down to the soundtrack of Mark’s very loud and high pitched groan. Without losing any time, Jongin slapped his fingers repeatedly into the keyboard while trying to localize Lucas’s character.

"Why did you have to kill me, asshole," Mark continued whining and what made it even funnier was the wheezes he could hear on Lucas’ part.

"Please cry," Jongin mocked him, shoulders rising in anticipation when he managed to find Lucas and made his character run towards him.

"Oh, I’m gonna make you cry too, Jongin," Lucas sang in his ears with a disgustingly sweet tone that made Jongin burst into laughter.

They both ran towards each other, before Jongin ducked behind the first rock he saw and threw whatever explosive item he had to him. Mark loudly cheered on for Jongin only to insult him right away when Lucas ended up killing him too. It all turned into laughter when Lucas cheered for his victory like a wild bird.

"One more game?" Mark asked, all traces of the sore loser he was disappearing.

"Last one," Lucas agreed and they immediately set up the next game.

"It’s still early though," Mark said as Jongin stretched his arms over his head with a broad sound that blended in a yawn and a groan.

"I’m gonna continue watching a series," Jongin said, tilting his head to one side and the other to stretch his neck. They’d been playing for almost two hours already and he was starting to get tired of it.

"And I got stuff to do," Lucas jumped in amidst the creaks of his desk chair.

"Or people to text," Mark snorted, dragging Jongin along.

Lucas really had someone to text now, a girl he texted even through class. Lisa liked to tell him that if he continued putting girls over studies, he’d fail every class and end up jobless. It was always a funny joke, no matter how many times she said it. Lucas did laugh at it too but that didn’t stop him from being stuck to his phone.

"No, really I haven’t done tomorrow’s homework yet," Lucas said after a bout of pleased laughter. He always bragged about having girls to text, never about the girls he did more than texting with. Jongin wasn’t sure there was that many, that was what made all of this funny.

"It’s literally almost midnight," Jongin snorted, although he felt bad for Lucas. Reading theatre at midnight was even worse than reading theater at midday and that, was already hellish.

"Pretty sure Mark didn’t do it either," Lucas defended himself right away.

Jongin grabbed the bottle of water standing next to his mousepad and took a huge gulp.

"I didn’t," he said, pulling out a loud _see!_ from Lucas. "But I’m not going to class tomorrow so it’s okay."

"Why?" Jongin asked, screwing the cap back on and putting the bottle down.

The game started with all players gathered at one place and Jongin moved away from the already violent crowd.

"Don’t feel like it," he heard Mark say and frowned a little bit.

It was already Friday tomorrow but Mark had only attended two classes throughout the whole week. The week before that he’d come two days out of five. Jongin knew that was the way it had been for the past few weeks now.

"Well, you won’t be missing much anyway. That class sucks," Lucas said and Jongin remained silent.

Both because that class really sucked _and_ because he wouldn’t scold his friend for not coming to class, even if it was getting a little concerning now.

"We’ll send you the notes, if there are any," was all he said instead, because that teacher really sucked at giving lectures and always derived to other subjects. Nothing really made sense or was worth noting down.

With Lucas’ victorious first kill, they all focused on the game and Jongin decided to wait just a little to see if things would get better with Mark. If not, he’d talk to him soon.

Jongin closed his eyes, threw his head back until it was leaned against the wall with a slight bump of pain. He took a rapid, loud breath in, and let it out again through his open mouth. It didn’t work.

When he opened his eyes and stared at the nothingness in front of him, he still didn’t feel quite alright. This was the worst feeling, he decided. This gap, not being sad enough to cry but feeling bad enough to be unhappy. About something. Something he still didn’t know.

He raised his head away from the wall and stared at his computer screen again. He hadn’t been able to focus on his movie so he’d closed the tab off out of irritation then messaged a friend because it was easier to focus on something when interaction was involved. Now, he was staring at his friend’s last message, hands on his keyboard but too mollified to move and type anything. He didn’t feel like talking.

Dragging his hands away from his laptop and letting them fall on either side of him instead, he sighed again. He was tired of sighing. He sighed a lot nowadays. Not even nowadays, it had been two months since he’d started sighing this much. This was his norm now, being unable to focus on anything, being unable to finish most things he started, being unable to enjoy whatever the hell he was doing, being unable to feel anything but frustration at the state he was constricted into. By what, he didn’t even know.

That thought brought flames to his eyes and Jongin pressed his lips together, squeezing his eyes shut to fight off the sensation. It made him focus on the squeezing sensation in his throat. He didn’t want to do this again. He waited a moment, immobile, breathing, impatient, then opened his eyes again. He still kind of felt like crawling into his bed and bawling his eyes out but only out of anger. He was tired of feeling like this. And he was already in bed, he was already feeling wrong, he didn’t want to worsen it. It didn’t even work.

In the past, he would just feel whatever he was feeling, embrace it, cry if he needed to, then move on. But it didn’t work anymore and Jongin didn’t know what had changed but he was determined to change it back so he typed his password in and forced himself to reply to his friend. Then, he closed the tab, unwilling to communicate with anyone any further.

He decided to get lost on youtube instead, watching that one guy who made knives out of anything he could find. Not even halfway through the first video, he paused and rubbed his hands against his face. His face felt wrong, felt warm, felt like he should peel it off to make more room on his body for anything other than whatever was inside of him now. He played the video again and forced himself to watch until the end. He would do this. He could do this. He did it out of spite against himself.

He stopped ten seconds before the video ended and changed tabs. He spent a few minutes scrolling through social media, smiling at memes, updating himself on whatever was happening in the world. Then he stopped, read the same short article three times because he could never get himself to read it entirely. His eyes didn’t wander, they remained stuck on the screen, but his mind kept eloping with uneasiness.

Jongin just wanted to feel better. He really just wanted to feel better. He annoyed himself by sighing an additional time, loudly enough for his eyes to get momentarily blurry. He blinked, blinked, blinked until it was kept under control. He was being pathetic, he refused to stoop down to crying once more. He was starting to hate this side of himself. He pressed play on the movie he’d left halfway through and told himself to focus correctly this time.

After a while, he stopped understanding the words, only heard them, but didn’t pause the movie. He let it play until he focused again, let it play even though he realized he missed the entirety of a scene, let it play even if he had to frown at the screen to focus, let it play and nothing changed until the end of the movie.

He wasn’t even proud of himself for finishing it. He should do his homework. But he had no homework to do. He’d already done everything yesterday because he’d felt the same way. It had taken him the whole afternoon, because he couldn’t concentrate. Jongin was starting to hate weekends.

Closing the tab again, Jongin checked his emails instead, to see if he had gotten anything from a teacher. He would really love to find an email informing him of an absence in the upcoming week, but at the same time that meant he would have to stay home and staying home meant having to cohabit with his broody self. If he could throw it out never to see it again, he would.

But he couldn’t. Therefore, he looked through the anime category on Netflix, unimpressed by every single one of the options. Nothing appealed to him and he knew it wasn’t because they weren’t interesting enough. That wasn’t the problem at all.

In the end, he settled on watching another movie, one he remembered Chanyeol mentioning to him in his list of funny things to watch. Jongin lied down and put the laptop on his chest. It wasn’t as heavy or uncomfortable as what was inside his chest. He played the movie and did his best not to think about anything else.

He didn’t want to let whatever he was feeling win over him. He could do this. He really could. He just had to distract himself. He could get the control back over his own life.

Ten minutes in, he rubbed his face until his nose hurt, realized he didn’t even remember the main character’s name, closed his laptop off, and decided to take a nap instead. Sleeping was not feeling.

When the controller fell out of his hand, Jongin looked away from his phone and down at it with a quiet sound of a surprise.

He saw it in Chanyeol’s hand and stared at it for a moment. He hadn’t felt Chanyeol taking it away from him at all, it had just felt like it was falling out of his hand or like he was losing his grip. Chanyeol was perhaps too discreet for his own good.

Jongin sat back down in relief, sending off his answer to Jongdae, before locking his phone and putting it on the floor beside him.

"Do you have to leave?" Chanyeol asked as he looked at the television screen and used Jongin’s main player controller to set up their next game.

"No, it’s just a friend talking about some new music," Jongin said, watching Chanyeol choose the rainbow circuit. He loved that circuit and always won whenever they raced on it. He often won whenever they raced somewhere else too. He just often won. "Jongdae," he added belatedly. They never talked about friends. They never really talked about the outside world.

"Is he in your major?" Chanyeol asked, handing him his controller back. Jongin only had to start the game now but he wanted to rest his thumbs a little so he waited.

"No, he’s doing something way funnier than I do," Jongin said, grabbing his glass of Ice Tea and siping at it. Chanyeol’s glass was still full, like it always was.

"What?" Chanyeol asked, scrunching his mouth with slight laughter.

"Cinema, basically," Jongin shrugged, putting his glass back down and leaning back against his bed to stretch his legs in front of him. They’d been sitting on the floor for a while now.

"Is literature boring then?" Chanyeol asked, turning his body towards him and folding his elbow on the bed to support his head.

The way he was looking at Jongin, steady and serious despite the light conversational tone, made him really think about the answer. Perhaps for too long.

"Don’t you like it?" Chanyeol asked and Jongin had heard this sentence in his mother’s voice many times before, whenever he’d complain about one novel that was too long or not to his taste.

The difference was that she always had an almost accusative tone, as if Jongin should never complain about whatever he was studying. As if complaining was a sign of weakness. Jongin had stopped complaining to her a few months after he’d started college.

"I do like it," he said, nodding his head once at the end of his sentence. It was the truth. He paused and thought about it a little more. Chanyeol silently observed him until he spoke again. "It’s just that liking literature is one thing, studying it is another. It’s a bit difficult sometimes, and some classes are really boring. I hate theater, for example."

Chanyeol hummed. "But overall?"

"Overall," Jongin, humming too but stretching it out more, tying it up into a sigh. He never really had to talk about this, nor think about it.

His friends were in the same situation, they didn’t have to say it out loud, it never went farther than a _this class sucks_ or _I hate this_. But Chanyeol was asking about it seriously and Jongin wanted to give him an equally serious answer.

"Overall, I don’t hate it," Jongin settled on saying. "Yeah," he said, confirming it more to himself than to Chanyeol. "Sometimes it sucks but I don’t wish I’d done something else."

"Did you ever want to do something else though?" Chanyeol asked, jumping the edge of the controller against his thigh a few times.

Jongin shook his head. "No, I really can’t imagine myself ever studying anything else. That’s why I sometimes really enjoy what I’m doing and I don’t regret choosing it."

"That’s what matters then," Chanyeol said, smiling at him.

He looked really cute in his hoodie today. It was a pale purple one, a complete clash to what Jongin had always seen him wear. It looked nice on him. The color was as soft as he felt to Jongin.

"What about you?" Jongin asked then, because they never really talked about anything serious but he liked it more than he thought and he’d like it to go on for a little bit. And if he could find out more about who Chanyeol was, then he wouldn’t miss the occasion. "Do you regret not going to college? Is there something you would’ve liked to study?"

It was only when Chanyeol hummed and pursed his lips that Jongin realized he didn’t even know if Chanyeol worked. But by how free he was and how often they could see each other without trouble, he figured that either he didn’t work or had a job with very flexible hours. Maybe he’d find out now.

"I think my life would’ve been better if I went to college, yeah," he said, moving the hand that was supporting his head up to his hair to scratch with a finger there. "There’s nothing I could imagine myself studying though. School was never really for me."

"But," Jongin started, trailing off. He was unsure how to ask this kind of things. "What did you do then? Instead of going to college?"

"I started working," Chanyeol said, shoulder shrugging but gaze still steady on Jongin’s face. He never looked away. "In the streets."

Jongin remained silent for a moment. "Like…" he trailed off again, unsure what he was supposed to assume.

"Selling," Chanyeol said, falling silent after that. Drugs. Jongin nodded his head. That wasn’t something he had expected to hear, but he didn’t want to show any bad kind of reaction to Chanyeol. Even if he couldn’t help the worry that came crashing into him as soon as he heard it, for Chanyeol. Not for himself. "But I got myself out of that," Chanyeol said then, turning around until he was facing the screen again. "I don’t do it anymore."

Jongin was glad to hear that. He knew how difficult that life was. His mother liked to shame that life every day, whenever she talked about his cousin.

"And are you happier now?"

It was a stupid question to some, maybe, but one he thought he should ask. One that was very important, to Jongin.

Chanyeol looked at him and smiled, nodding silently at first, and then speaking. "I am."

"That’s all that matters then," Jongin said, mirroring his smile. Or maybe absorbing it into his own face.

It wasn’t just at the surface that he felt content with Chanyeol being happy. It genuinely made him feel good to know it.

Good enough for Jongin not to mind losing the next three rounds they played, even if Chanyeol was a very obnoxious winner who liked to praise himself too much.

_Hey, are you okay? did you get sick?_

Jongin sent his message and switched his tabs back to his class notes, listening to the lecturer as he went on about women in literature. Jongin liked most of the literary works he quoted and should probably fully focus on the lecture but Mark hadn’t come to class today too and this time, he hadn’t told anyone about it beforehand.

Olivia sighed besides him and when he turned to her, her eyebrows were raised and her eyes were widened into a grimace of distress as she continued taking notes. The lecturer was really talking too fast. Jongin laughed softly but before he could cheer her up, his phone lit up with a notification. He switched back to Messenger on his laptop.

_No I’m okay!_

_I just wasn’t motivated enough to come_

Jongin frowned at the messages. Mark never felt motivated for class nowadays. He was glad he could at least say it directly like that, but it didn’t change the fact that he was getting more and more worried with each passing day.

He worded his next message in the most careful way possible.

_You’re missing a lot of classes nowadays_

_Is everything okay? I’m here if you ever want to talk about stuff_

He turned his screen’s luminosity down to make it harder for people around him to see it, left the tab open, and raised his gaze to the lecturer to listen to him. He couldn’t focus on taking notes now, he could afford to stray from it a little bit to talk to his friend.

The answer took a bit longer to come.

_I hate it_

_I truly hate these classes I don’t think it’s for me at all_

Jongin bit his lower lip as he read these messages but remained unmoving, because Mark was still writing and more of them came in.

_I hated every book we had to read only bc we had to analyze them_

_It’s really making me hate literature all of this is doing that to me_

_I only like reading every single book up to the moment I finished the story and then we have to analyze or work on it and it really looks like I’m not as good at literature as I thought I was I truly don’t understand anything and I’m tired of getting 7 or 8 or less on every essay we have to write_

_It just feels useless to come to class when I really hate being there and the only reason why I go is just to see you guys_

Only once he was done ranting did Jongin write his reply, slowly.

_We can help each other out_

_You’re not alone in this we’re all together_

_We can do our homework together or explain stuff to each other and exchange notes_

_I know it’s really difficult but you’re really being too hard on yourself_

He didn’t like how dejected Mark sounded, how it looked like he’d been keeping all of this to himself and had only spilled everything out once Jongin asked him. He must’ve been thinking about this for a while and Jongin regretted not talking to him earlier. He should’ve noticed all of this earlier.

The lecturer rose his voice a little bit and Jongin’s eyes jumped to him. He stared for a few seconds then looked back down at his screen when he figured out it was just a talking habit and nothing major was going on.

He really didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t sure what would make Mark feel better about all of this. He knew Mark had already hesitated at the end of last year because he’d had trouble passing his second semester but he’d chosen to just continue and he’d even had pretty great grades at the first midterms. But the finals for the first semester of this year hadn’t been easy to pass for him.

Maybe Jongin should’ve done more, studied with him, sent him notes, or asked if he needed him to send them.

He heard Olivia talking, she’d probably turned to say something to Lisa on her other side, but he still looked at his screen until an answer came.

_Thank you really_

_It means a lot to hear that and maybe it’ll help_

_But I really don’t know I’ll think about all of this and I guess we’ll see_

Jongin pressed his lips together as he read over it. That didn’t really sound like he’d been of any help at all. He tied his hands together by the fingers, contemplating what he could even say.

_I’m here whenever you need it,_ was what he chose to send. He didn’t want to insist too much, didn’t want to overwhelm him either. He just hoped Mark would reach out when he needed help and if he didn’t, Jongin would reach out to him to make sure he didn’t need help.

Mark read his answer and Jongin stared it, waiting for a reply. It didn’t come even five minutes later so he tried focusing back on the class, peeking at Olivia’s computer screen to see what he’d missed. He tried taking more notes but the majority of the class was spent thinking about what he could do to help.

"I really will never be able to find that book," Lisa sighed, standing immobile, phone dangling in her hand.

She’d already toured the whole floor twice to find her book and Jongin was pretty sure this was the right floor. There wasn’t really poetry downstairs and the floor above them was mostly classical and foreign literature. Young adult novels were everywhere on this floor, spread around a bit too much maybe.

Jongin laughed a little and put down the book he’d picked up. He hadn’t checked this section in a long time but he really liked looking at the covers, a lot of them were really attractive.

"Maybe you should just go and ask," he suggested, trailing his finger over the textured part of another cover. One of his favorite sensations. "It’ll be much easier."

Lisa sighed again. "Yeah, I’ll just go and do that," she said, already looking around to locate an information desk near them. "Or else I’ll just go crazy," she muttered, making Jongin laugh again as she started walking away.

Instead of following her, he lingered around for a bit longer, grabbing another book. He should probably feel bad for going for the pretty covers but he didn’t really. A cover was a story, the trick was to match it to the story it was supposed to illustrate.

He turned it around and read the summary at the back, pursing his lips. It was another interesting novel. There were many of them and Jongin didn’t know why he’d stopped reading young adult novels. He’d just naturally diverted to classics and poetry but he regretted it a little, he’d probably missed a lot of great stories. He snapped a picture of the novel he was holding and put it down. He’d buy it later, not today because he’d told himself to behave and not buy anything. It was really difficult to get out of this huge bookstore with empty hands but today, he would achieve that goal.

In order to escape the young adult trap, Jongin walked away from the section and let his feet lead him to what his eyes caught – the historical section of the floor.

Right in front of that aisle, stood a long bookcase with several shelves and a religious book caught Jongin’s eyes so he stood there and checked if that whole place really contained nothing but that theme. It didn’t really and surprise veiled his gaze as he strolled it over the shelves, catching many books about not only religious practices but myths and legends, angels, exorcisms. Jongin grabbed a really somber-looking book, its spine tainted black with hues of blue smoke, and looked at the title on the hard cover. It seemed to be about demonic possessions and Jongin opened it but before he could properly dive into it, a thump crashed to his ears and he turned his head to the left, where a book had just crashed on the floor.

Frowning, he put the book he was holding down and looked at the section on his left. He knew it was weird that he hadn’t dropped a single book yet since they’d gotten here. He always made at least two drop and Jongin looked around, glad to see that there was no one to judge his clumsiness. He crouched down to grab the book, its texture coarse like dried up tissue against his fingers. It was another obscure book but Jongin didn’t really need to observe it to know - its title was enough. _Death Practices_ , it read in big red letters carved into the cover, right above an illustration of a skeleton draped in rags of a grey lighter than the book’s main color.

Out of curiosity, Jongin opened that book instead. He really didn’t know there were such books in here but this store was so wide it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he didn’t know every nook and corners of it. He browsed through the book, lingering on a page about mummification, staring at the illustrations first. There was a lot of it, in a style that matched the gloomy content it read, and Jongin skipped a few pages, reading a few chapter and page titles about reincarnation, death angels, afterlife, and then landing on the legends portion of the book.

The very first legend was presented next to an illustration of a graveyard, so dark Jongin had to really focus on it to see a single figure standing somewhere amongst tombstones. It could be a shadow, could be a man, could be a trick of the artist, and Jongin dragged his eyes to the actual legend, furrowing his eyebrows.

_An Elected Mourner_ , was its title. Jongin read over it twice, tilting his head. The sentence bellow it clarified the legend’s label. _A soul chosen by the gods to weep over an abandoned soul without a single cryer._

"Is that a book about Jesus?"

Jongin looked up from the page to see Lisa’s judgmental wrinkles around the mouth. He closed the book with a snort and showed it to her.

"No it’s a book that teaches me how to kill annoying friends," he retorted, to which she scrunched her face even more until he laughed and she joined along.

"Did you find it?" he asked even if the answer was obvious, she was holding a book in her hand.

He slid the book back into a small opening between two thick encyclopedias, reading the title over the spine one last time. He toned the intrigue down and turned to her.

"Yeah, I really wasn’t looking at the right place at all," she sighed, tapping a few fingers over the cover.

"It’s hard to find the right place in here," Jongin shrugged with his eyebrows, then gestured to the shelves next to him. "I didn’t even know they had all this."

"Me neither," Lisa said, glancing at the shelves once before pointing the book up over her shoulder, behind her. "Can we go look at the pens?"

Jongin had expected to hear that question but he still huffed an exasperated laugh out. She had a really heavy obsession with pens, a collection that had impressed Jongin the first time she’d showed him pictures. She had four full glasses of pens on her desk and if Jongin were to define hyper fixation, those pictures were what he’d show people.

And yet, he accompanied her downstairs, to the stationary section. Not only would he be able to make fun of her every time she gasped at a _pen_ but Olivia had also told him there was an aisle full of things inspired by the Little Prince. Jongin wouldn’t miss that.

"Have you been talking to Mark?" Jongin asked as he scraped green peas into his fork with the help of his knife.

The cafeteria was pretty loud today, a bit louder than usual. As the weather was not so good, rain pouring over them since last night, a lot of people had chosen to remain on campus to eat rather than wander out to the nearby restaurants.

Everyone still heard him pretty clearly, Jongin saw all of them raising their heads to look at him.

"Not really," Lisa said, pausing to take a sip of water and putting her glass back down. "He hasn’t come to class the whole week either."

Jongin hummed, planting his fork into a piece of chicken. He hadn’t come to class since their text conversation, almost a week ago now.

"He’s always been pretty absent though," Olivia said, reaching for the jug of water.

"Well, yeah but it’s getting a little worrisome," Lisa answered, speaking behind her hand to conceal the food in her mouth.

"I think so too," Jongin said and he was secretly glad that he wasn’t being dramatic about this.

"I think it worsened since he got sick and was away for a whole week," Lucas said around a mouthful of food that he, contrary to Lisa, did not conceal.

Jongin scrunched his nose at him and made a point to engulf a small mountain of peas and chew them with his mouth sealed shut. A very small mountain. He wished it wouldn’t be weird of him to use a spoon to eat his peas. He ate a carrot to wash that wish down.

"Yeah, he only skipped days back then. A day here and there," Lisa said, frowning at her phone when it lit up with a notification beside her tray.

"But now he’s skipping entire weeks," Jongin sighed, looking up to his left when a group of three students stood by their table while looking for somewhere to sit.

"I think he’s kinda giving up on classes." Olivia dropped two peas into her plate, eliciting laughter from Lucas whom she ignored to continue speaking. "He didn’t even work on his essay that much when we grouped together the other day."

"Yeah, he was mostly just listening or goofing around with Lucas," Lisa accused him with a pointed stare.

Lucas’ hands jumped up in defense, his fork almost scraping against Jongin’s shoulder. He ignored it. He was used to these safety hazards.

"I still did a lot of work there," he claimed and Jongin knew it was true but he still hummed dubiously just to tease him.

"You also laughed way too hard, I swear you gave me a headache," Olivia complained, pointing at him with her fork. Her voice was so soft it was almost hard to hear her over the boisterous occupation of the room.

"I talked to him last week," Jongin said, straying the conversation back to a serious path. He was still worried and they all got distracted way too easily. "I’m a little bit worried because he told me he wasn’t really feeling school anymore."

"He wants to drop out?" Lucas questioned, raising his eyebrows as loud laughter elevated somewhere on their left, followed by the unpleasant whine of chairs screeching against the floor.

Jongin twisted his mouth in a facial shrug. "He might. And if he’s not coming to school then that’s only confirming it."

"He never really liked classes," Lisa hummed, ripping a piece of bread from her slice and dragging it into the leftover sauce from the chicken on her plate.

"Yeah, but dropping out is serious," Jongin said, putting his fork down. He wasn’t that hungry anymore, instead he worked on finishing his glass of water.

"I mean, I don’t think it’s a sudden thing." Lucas reached for the bread on Jongin’s tray before continuing. He always used way too much bread to eat cheese at the end of his meal."It’s been this way since the beginning of the year.

"I think it got worse after last semester’s grades," Jongin slowly said, thinking about it as he spoke. Mark hadn’t passed the semester, that was a huge factor in what discouraged him. But he could pass the year if this semester’s grades compensated last semester’s.

"Yeah, it’s probably discouraging but if he skips class he won’t pass this semester either," Lisa said, grabbing her phone from the table.

"Well, that doesn’t matter much if he wants to drop out anyway," Lucas shrugged. "And if he really wants it then he should do what’s best for him. It sucks to study something you hate."

Jongin looked down at his plate with a frown. He knew Lucas spoke from experience, he’d studied Law for a year before dropping out and going into Literature instead. Whenever he spoke about it, it sounded like the worst year of his life.

"Should we talk to him about it?" Jongin asked. "Cheer him up or encourage him to hang on or something?" It might help for him to know that he wasn’t alone in this.

"Maybe we should just let him figure it out on his own," Olivia said then, pulling her chair closer to the table when the person behind her tried pushing theirs away to get up. "He’s probably just considering everything right now."

"Yeah, we shouldn’t pressure him for anything. It’s his decision," Lisa agreed, momentarily looking up from her phone. "Let’s just wait a few days and then talk to him about it. He probably needs to think about stuff."

"Yeah, maybe you’re right," Jongin mumbled, even though he wasn’t sure that was the best thing to do.

But they all seemed to think leaving him alone for a bit would help and he supposed that would be better than trying to convince Mark into continuing college when that wasn’t really what he wanted. Still, he felt uneasy about the situation.

He jugged down the last few drops of water in his glass then tried to focus on Lucas’ complaints about their next class.

There was a difference between them, Jongin realized.

He should be doing his homework, should be reading this chapter on that textbook about literature he’d paid way too much for at the beginning of the year. Instead, he kept glancing up at Chanyeol. He was pretty close. Jongin was settled on his desk chair, rolled right next to the bed where Chanyeol was sitting, legs crossed and back hunched over the book he was holding on the mattress. Maybe Jongin shouldn’t have pushed himself so close to him.

It was a fact proven over and over again that he had a hard time concentrating when Chanyeol was around him. It was also a fact proven over and over again that he was better at concentrating when Chanyeol was around him. Today, it was the first option. The next time, it might be the second one.

Throughout his many glances at Chanyeol’s hair, at the tip of his nose, at his fingers on the pale pages, at the sturdiness of his wrist, Jongin had noticed something. Chanyeol flipped through pages, read a poem, went five pages back, read another one, skipped an entire chapter, read another one. Jongin always read his poems in a linear way, always let the book guide him, never strayed from the path laid out to him.

That was the difference between them, maybe, and Jongin found it funny. He found it pretty matching. Chanyeol read things so quickly too, moving from one poem to the other almost instantly. Jongin always read a poem at least twice, more if he really liked it. He was slow even in that world.

He looked back down at his own book, happy that Chanyeol seemed to like what he was reading. He knew Rupi Kaur could come off as cheesy, especially in her first book. Jongin had sold that one as soon as he was done reading it but her second book, he’d kept it. It was much, much better than her first one and Jongin had read it over twice. He knew he could reach for it endlessly without ever growing bored of the beauty in her words.

But he had to study now, so he forced himself to look back down at his book. He really had trouble memorizing these terms. Focalization, heterodiegetic narrator, homodiegetic narrator. Jongin mixed up every single one of these terms and that was probably the only aspect of literature he hated. Analysis didn’t only rely on plot and characters but style and narration and prose and he really, really needed to understand these terms. He wouldn’t be able to get what the difference between text time and story time in the narration was if he couldn’t understand these first. He was pretty late compared to the rest of his classmates.

He read the definitions over and over again, tried matching each of them to some books he had read, defining the narrators even though he had no way of knowing if he was right or not. He read what focalization was again. The eyes through which the story was seen. Different from a narrator. He read what a homodiegetic narrator was again, read the examples given to illustrate the definition. The moment he closed his eyes and tried reciting the definition in his head, it got blurry. He should check for more concrete examples in his class notes.

With a sigh, he closed the book, raised his eyes, and blocked his gaze into what he saw. Chanyeol’s hand wasn’t fast enough. It didn’t fall down quickly enough for Jongin to miss it wiping his eye. He was frowning down at the book, head tilted down but his expression very clear, there was nothing to hide it, his hair was swept up just like it always was. It was with a slow lucidity that Jongin realized Chanyeol was crying, was stopping himself from crying.

"What’s wrong?" he asked, sitting up, words leaving his mouth before he could even process what was happening.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Jongin had seen lots of people cry in his life, had comforted them, spent a lot of time crying himself. And yet, this felt off. Chanyeol wasn’t even crying, he had probably wiped one tear and then stopped himself, but that was enough for Jongin’s stomach to churn with uneasiness. He had never imagined Chanyeol sad before. Seeing it with his own eyes before even seeing it in his head made it a bit difficult, a bit unbearable.

"Nothing," Chanyeol replied after a moment, still not looking up from the book. His voice had never sounded so weak, so light that Jongin was glad the window was shut and the wind couldn’t pick it up and swirl it away.

He put down the book he was holding on the bedside table and leaned his body forward until he could rest his elbows on his knees, bringing himself a little closer to Chanyeol. He glanced at the poem Chanyeol had been reading. _Advice I would’ve given my mother on her wedding day._ Jongin swallowed and looked back up at Chanyeol. One of his favorite poems in the collection, one that resonated deeply within him just like most of the poems on the family-themed section of the collection.

"You don’t want to talk about it?" Jongin asked, lacing his hands together and squeezing his fingers. He didn’t want to pressure Chanyeol but he was worried. "It’s okay if you don’t."

Chanyeol sighed, closed his eyes for the duration of it, then closed the book when he looked up at Jongin. He didn’t look small at all on Jongin’s bed, he had broad shoulders and his legs looked long even though he had them crossed. He didn’t look small at all, but Jongin wondered if he _felt_ small.

"It’s just," Chanyeol said, waving a hand up in a vague gesture to illustrate his words. He sighed again, this time louder, then cupped his own cheek, squishing it and deforming his lips into puffiness. "The poem."

Jongin felt his cheeks hardening up in a snap and bit his lip to prevent himself from smiling. This was just the poem’s effect on Chanyeol. It was just that he was touched by a poem. It shouldn’t make Jongin feel so happy. It shouldn’t make Chanyeol look so tiny and precious and deserving of a hiding place in Jongin’s pocket.

"It’s an emotional poem," Jongin said, softly as not to disturb the delicacy of the air surrounding them both.

Jongin didn’t read that poem often. It had too much of an effect on him. It made him incredibly sad to realize how perfectly it matched his mother whenever he read it. It made him incredibly regretful to think of the life she led, of the fact that maybe, she wasn’t happy at all.

"I think it’s perfect," Chanyeol muttered, still not looking at Jongin, still squishing his cheek, still staring down at the mattress without truly looking at it either. Jongin said nothing, waited, stared at this foreign display of emotion with awe, felt for Chanyeol, shared his emotions. "I never really felt a poem so much."

Jongin smiled. It felt a little bitter on his mouth.

"I’m glad you found a poem that makes you feel." He pursed his lips, waited a bit more, then spoke again. "I’m sorry it’s such a sad one though."

It wasn’t really sad in its essence. The sorrow wasn’t in the poem, it was in its relation to the reader’s unpronounced, unthought thoughts.

Chanyeol looked at him. His eyes were glistening, the emotions they held limpid and bared out to Jongin, enough for him to pick it right up and feel it deep within him. It became a bittersweet alliance inside of him, between the sorrow that poem gave him, gave Chanyeol, and the gladness procured by Chanyeol sharing this with him.

He kind of wanted to take him into arms, hug him, protect this little man that cried for a life stolen from his mother. It didn’t feel odd at all that the roles were exchanged, that Jongin wasn’t the one crying. It came as a relief, that the roles _could_ be exchanged easily.

"I haven’t seen her in a while," Chanyeol said and Jongin really, really wanted to hug him.

He knew it would make him feel better, knew there was nothing wrong about hugging a friend in need of comfort. And yet, he couldn’t bring his body to move, even though his arms yearned to wrap around Chanyeol, so strongly that his fingers squeezed each other harder.

This wasn’t just a friend. This was Chanyeol. A hug wouldn’t be just a hug, not to Jongin. A hug would require much more courage than Jongin had at the moment.

"Why?" he asked instead of moving, making sure to never look away from Chanyeol. His gaze could embrace him at least, even though it brought no relief to the need coursing through his whole body in the shape of tiny jitters in the fingers, on the bounce of a knee, the twitch of an eyebrow.

"I just–" He stopped, pressed his lips together, dropped his hand to free his cheek and his lips. His gaze was steady on Jongin and his words not muffled anymore when he spoke again. "After dropping out of school I got involved in bad things. You know." Jongin nodded silently. They’d talked about it before. "And she didn’t want to see me ever again after that and I understand. I felt too ashamed to even try and see her anyway."

"But you’re not selling anymore," Jongin said, voice softened by how small Chanyeol did look now. A bit like a child, an abandoned one. Although, that wasn’t really it. "Wouldn’t she forgive you now? Or want to see you?"

Chanyeol shook his head, barely enough that Jongin could’ve missed it.

"I said really shitty things to her, blamed her for everything." He twisted his features into sourness. Jongin could recognize guilt when he saw it.

"But does she even know you stopped all of that?"

He shook his head again, only once this time. "She passed away before she could know." He kept tracing his finger over the graving on the book’s cover, over and over again.

Jongin pressed his lips together, watched him raise his hands and rub his eyes. They’d gotten wet again but he didn’t cry, he merely spread the wetness around his eyes a little, then dropped his hands again. They looked tired, washed out against the yellow of the book.

He should say something, to comfort Chanyeol. But there was nothing he could say that would alleviate that loss. There was nothing he could do that would lighten the regret Chanyeol probably lived with. There was nothing he could do except swallow down the tightening in his throat. Chanyeol must be in so much pain.

"Sorry," Chanyeol said then, glancing at him with eyes a bit reddened but dry, before looking down again right away.

Jongin dragged a deep breath in. He didn’t like seeing Chanyeol restrain himself so much. Although, he wasn’t sure this was really restraining. He had talked, after all, had gotten teary eyed, and even though that wasn’t a full acceptance of his own emotions, he still had let it out a little bit. That was still good, still better than nothing.

"You don’t have to apologize," Jongin said then and his hand stuttered in the air when he reached to rub comfort into Chanyeol’s knee for a split second. He pulled his hand away again and drew his lips into the skeleton of a smile. "Emotions are nothing to be ashamed of. You’re just feeling things, like everyone does. And it’s alright. Showing it is alright, feeling it is alright too. You just have to feel it for a little while and then it’ll go away."

He felt a like a hypocrite as he spoke those words out. He wasn’t sure he followed his own advice, wasn’t sure whether those words were meant for Chanyeol’s ears or his own.

Chanyeol just hummed, nodding his head, glancing at him from time to time as silence settled over them. Jongin said nothing for a moment, let him recover, let him feel.

Only when Chanyeol looked at him properly without glancing away did he smile and shrug lightly.

"It’s just between us anyway," he said. It really was just between them. Jongin knew he could share anything between them and hoped Chanyeol felt the same way. Maybe he did. Maybe that was why this conversation was held. "We can be crybabies together," he said, raising his eyebrows exaggeratedly in an expression of mock acceptance.

Chanyeol snorted at that, drawing a relieved smile on Jongin’s face that turned into outrage when he grabbed the tiny teddybear sitting behind him and threw it at Jongin who grabbed it midair.

"I’m not the one sleeping with a teddybear," he mocked Jongin with that dragged out tone and the smile that softened mockeries into teasing words.

Jongin huffed and threw the bear right back at him, aiming for his face instead. Chanyeol’s reflexes were bad enough for it to bump against his nose and Jongin burst into laughter when the impact was exaggerated as he fell back and caught himself with his elbows.

He tried glaring at Jongin but it only made him laugh harder, more strident, until Chanyeol gave up the façade and laughed along with him, heartily, unaware that Jongin didn’t even sleep with the teddybear on his bed anymore. He always kept room for Chanyeol, just in case.


	2. Chapter 2

The sound of chopsticks occasionally hitting bowls and plates was almost louder than the stream of information pouring out of the news anchor sitting straight on the television screen.

Jongin didn’t look at it, he focused on eating as fast as he could so he could go back to his room and catch the new episode of a show he followed. Nothing about the news interested him anyway, on the contrary, it only made a good morning bitter. He sipped on his stew to wash the taste out and wished he’d gotten out of bed later, after watching the show.

He really disliked these weekend breakfasts, with silence reigning over the table for the most part. He was used to his family not having much to say to each other but he still disliked the boredom it associated to his meal. And the death. It felt like his tie to his parents was dying with every meal spent without talking to each other.

That was the kind of moment he spent wishing he could at least use his phone while eating. He glanced at his mother when she reached for the pajeon, grabbing a small piece of the pancake and dropping one long strip of green onion when she lifted it. She would nag at him for ten whole minutes if he were to even bring his phone to the table and his father would observe the situation with a silent but loudly disappointed shake of his head. His father cleared his throat and Jongin looked away from his furrowed eyebrows and back down to his stew.

Grabbing a dollop of rice into his spoon, he dipped it into the broth to flavor it.

"Your aunt says hi," his mother said then, voice overpowering the news anchor’s. His father really hated loud noises so the volume was always kept low when he was in the house.

Jongin hummed. "She called?" he asked, looking at his father whose attention was still focused on the screen. She must’ve told him earlier.

"This morning," she answered, reaching for more pajeon but this time, putting it in Jongin’s bowl of rice.

"How is she doing?" he asked, thanking her with a silent smile. He didn’t really want it but he wouldn’t turn her down so he directly took a slice between his chopsticks, dipped it in the sauce, and ate it.

"Pretty great," she said, quickly glancing over at his father’s bowl. She looked back at Jongin and took a sip of water. "Your cousin got in trouble again."

Jongin put his glass down, hardly swallowing the water. That was the only reason why she’d started this conversation. They always talked about three different topics while eating: school, food, or family members. Two out of these three was an unpleasant topic and the remaining a very dull, empty subject of conversation just for the act of talking rather than communicating. Jongin preferred silence.

"Has he?" he still said, because the conversation was started anyway and nothing would ever stop his mother from gossiping about people and their wrongdoings. He shoveled more rice into his mouth, decided to finish his meal much more quickly than planned.

"Yeah, as usual," she said, nodding fervently. Jongin wished she was this passionate about something else. "He got into a fight and the police got involved."

"Did he get arrested?" his father asked then, joining in the conversation. Jongin knew it wasn’t worry that motivated him, just curiosity. She probably hadn’t given him the full details earlier.

"No," she shook her head, catching a bit of meat in her spoon. "He just got a warning but he probably would’ve been arrested if things had escalated. You know him, he’s in some kind of gang or something like that."

Jongin was pretty sure it wasn’t a gang. Last time he’d talked to his cousin, they’d joked about everyone saying he was in one but hearing it from his mother or other people from his family didn’t make it laughable. He hated that prejudice and the judgement. His aunt just lived in a difficult neighborhood and his cousin just had troublesome friends. He was troublesome but not part of a gang.

"I’m glad you’re not like him," his mother said then, words dragged and slow. Not relief. She was boasting about Jongin to Jongin himself. "You have nice friends and focus on your studies and have good grades. Unlike your cousin."

And Jongin knew this was the turn this conversation would take, it was always the same conclusion but that didn’t make it any less unpleasant. He grabbed a few grains of rice and brought them to his mouth.

"I think your aunt’s envious," she said then with a small laugh. "She sounds like it whenever I talk about you."

She never talked about him. She only bragged about him.

Jongin should feel happy. He really should feel happy about the fact that he was doing good enough for his mother to be able to proudly talk about him. But he knew, he knew she never did it out of any positive emotions. She just liked being better than everyone else, even in raising her children. Her bragging about him to someone who’s obviously struggling with her own children took any beauty out of it. He never talked to his aunt anymore but it didn’t take much to figure out she was having a hard time.

Jongin stopped listening to her. She continued speaking for a while and he hummed here and there, but didn’t pay much attention to her words. They died down soon enough. She ran out of tings to say and they fell back to that eternal silence that flavored their food. He wished it was a sweeter taste but the only conversations they held at the table made him feel bad. Not even for himself, for everyone his parents ever talked about.

He finished his food quickly, acting like he was paying deep attention to the footage shown on the screen. Seeing the rising unemployment rate was much more pleasant than looking at how wrong sharing a meal with his family felt. He finished, put his bowls and utensils away, then went up to his room. He forgot all about this as soon as he closed his door.

Jongin looked up from his computer when he heard Lucas greeting someone and instantly smiled when he saw Mark heading towards them.

He hadn’t told anyone he’d be coming to class today but he looked pretty happy to be here, judging by the way he playfully bumped his elbow against both Lisa and Olivia’s head as a greeting while sliding himself behind their chairs. Jongin snorted when he accidentally knocked off the bottle standing on the table behind and apologized to their classmate.

By the time he pulled his backpack out of the empty chair next to him, Mark had already reached it and was pulling it back form the table.

"Hey, it’s been a while," Jongin greeted him, looking up at him with a smile.

It had been more than a week since Mark came to class and he was incredibly relieved to see him here. It meant he hadn’t given up yet, contrary to what he’d suggested when they’d talked over text messages that one time.

"Yeah," Mark said, stretching the sound as he plopped down next to Jongin. "I thought I should still come from time to time. It’s really been a while," he said as he zipped his backpack open and pulled out his notebook.

"I’m glad you’re here," Jongin said, genuinely meaning it for various reasons. He also kind of missed his friend, they hadn’t seen each other at all and maybe that was the worst thing about Mark potentially dropping out. But he looked nice, not sick or unhappy even though his dark circles were as deep as usual. "Are you okay though?" he still asked, just because he needed to actually hear it to know it.

"Well," Mark said, dropping his bag to the floor and looking at him with a scrunch of his eyebrows. "I’d rather be home, you know."

Jongin pursed his lips for a split moment before replying. "I thought you liked this class," he said, voice a bit crushed by the answer he’d gotten. It wasn’t the one he had hoped for, even though he was glad Mark was genuine with him.

He felt Lucas’ elbow bumping against his. He didn’t need to look at him to know that he was leaning close, looking at them and listening to their conversation. They’d talked about Mark a few more times and Jongin knew all of them were worried about him.

"I do," Mark sighed, just as the classmates in front of them burst into a fit of laughter. "But it’s kinda sad that this is the only class I like, isn’t it?"

Jongin pressed his lips together and hummed a little, unsure what to say. He felt like he sucked at speaking, suddenly. Whenever this topic came up, he sucked at comforting and reassuring. Nothing he said helped Mark in any way and he pressed his lips together harder to crush the disappointment he felt.

"But it’s okay!" Mark chirped, adding way too much energy into that single sentence for it to really be sincere. "I’m here now." He raised the pen he was holding in nonchalance then dropped it again.

"We’re very proud of you, Mark," Lucas said from beside Jongin, tone stretched with playfulness, lightly enough for it not to veil his words in mockery.

"Thanks," Mark snorted, looking at the door. Jongin followed his gaze and saw the teacher coming in with a greeting and closing the door behind herself.

He woke his laptop up and typed in his password before looking at Mark again.

"Do you want me to send you the notes for the classes you missed?" he asked, lowering his voice when the teacher started speaking.

Mark looked up from his phone, lips tugged down at the corners.

"I don’t want to bother you with that."

"It’s just notes," Jongin said, shrugging. "I don’t mind."

"Alright then," Mark smiled, putting his phone down. "Thank you, really," he said and Jongin shook his head, smiling back at him.

If he could help in any kind of way, he’d be very happy. They fell silent then, focusing on the class that started with the teacher asking them where exactly they’d left off on their study.

Or at least, Jongin focused on it. A few glances Mark’s way were enough to see that he wrote nothing down throughout the whole class, busying himself on his phone or just listening to the teacher without doing anything else. Jongin didn’t let it worry him too much and remained focused.

"Why are you sad?"

Jongin looked up and then looked down again when Chanyeol sat down beside him. The floor was cold, the edge of the pavement wasn’t high enough for his legs to look anything near comfortable, there was barely enough room for two people to sit between these two cars parked along the pavement. But Chanyeol still sat down beside him and Jongin looked straight in front of him again.

He hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d thought getting out for some fresh air would do him some good. He’d walked a little away from his house but must’ve lost his energy somewhere along the way. He’d sat down, glad that that it was way past the middle of the night and that there was no one around to judge him. Except Chanyeol. But Chanyeol hadn’t judged him, he’d only appeared and sat down beside him. As usual.

It was cold, Jongin probably should’ve grabbed an actual coat rather than a jacket on his way out of the house. Jongin probably shouldn’t have even gotten out. It made no sense to leave the house at 2 in the morning in only his pajamas. But it made sense to want to escape his inability to fall asleep.

He supposed he was sad. Nowadays, he tried not to acknowledge it. Because acknowledging it didn’t even help, only worsened it, only made him sadder because he was sad and always sad and never knew why.

"I don’t know," he replied, after a pause much too long.

Chanyeol hadn’t urged him, hadn’t repeated the question either. Jongin rubbed a hand along his calf, slow and useless against the cold. His sweatpants were too thin.

He looked at the road ahead and wished a car would at least drive by. That would be movement, it would be rapidity. All he could see was the wind ruffling the trees, barely, so slowly it could be the trick of shadows. But it wasn’t. It was just excruciatingly slow, so much that Jongin’s chest was tight, his breath adjusting to the slow-motion, leaving his lungs depleted.

Looking up to the sky, he sighed.

"It could be the weather," he said, voice nestling into a whisper. It was too silent around him, too slow for him to want to startle anything.

The sky was too dark, too cloudy. They’d skipped through half of March but the weather still wasn’t nice. It was just ugly and broody and grey and Jongin missed clear blues and ice cream weather and meeting his friends to hang out all day.

He sighed again and looked down at his shoes. He looked ridiculous, wearing them unlaced. He tugged at one lace, grabbed the tip where it was hard, then traced it over the side of his shoe. He heard Chanyeol’s feet making noise, shoes scratching against the ground loudly and sharply. Silence fell over almost immediately.

"It could be because my favorite show just ended," he muttered, voice falling off his mouth like a tired body crashing into a bed at the end of the day.

Jongin’s day hadn’t ended yet, because he hadn’t been able to sleep. Even sleeping he couldn’t do properly.

He looked at Chanyeol’s legs, dropping his shoelace and watching Chanyeol’s arms lacing around his legs instead.

There could be so many reasons, yet none seemed fitting.

"It could be because I’ll have to study so many things soon that I probably won’t even have time to watch any of my favorite shows."

Exams were coming up. Jongin felt like he’d only completed his last exam a month ago and new ones were coming up. He disliked that cycle, it made him feel trapped in a circle too narrow for him to even fit his head in properly.

"It could be because I see my friends too much." Seeing people was starting to be tiring. That was how Jongin used to rest before, by meeting people and having fun. Now, that felt like the most exhausting part of his days. "Could be because I actually don’t like Zola as much as I did when I started college." It could be because he wasn’t sure he liked studying literature as much as he thought he did.

Chanyeol’s shoes scratched against the ground again. There was no wind but Jongin still felt the cold hugging his shoulders. He hugged himself to counter it.

There could be so many reasons.

"It could be because I’m me. It could be for absolutely nothing. I’m just sad."

There really was no reason. There shouldn’t be and there wasn’t.

He let go of himself and grabbed his own face instead, cupping his cheeks, pressing until his skin was squished against the cold of his palms and his mouth was distorted. Like the time he lived in. He felt like it had taken him the whole night to get those sentences out of his brain.

"Then maybe I can sit with you while you’re sad," Chanyeol said and while Jongin had spoken in whispers, he spoke in a clear voice. Not crushed but not loud either, just careful, just cajoling in its tone and form.

Jongin turned to him, looked at him. Their eyes met and that felt boisterous. For some reason, that felt like a loud sound. A quick, heavy sound that kept Jongin’s attention stuck to Chanyeol rather than the bleariness around him, inside of him.

Chanyeol smiled. An orange smile, tainted by the street lights around them, far enough for him to properly see only half of Chanyeol’s smile but the entirety of the delicacy he offered Jongin on his face.

"Maybe you don’t know why you’re sad," he said, and his hand moved, he was probably rubbing something or playing with his shoe or something but Jongin still kept focusing on his face. Because orange was supposed to be a happy, obnoxious color but on Chanyeol’s face, it took a melancholic hue, a comforting shade. One Jongin felt himself soaking in most days. "But maybe feeling sad will be just a little more bearable, a little less lonely with me sitting next to you."

Jongin looked at him for a while, really saw him for a moment. Really felt seen for a moment.

Chanyeol didn’t look away, not even while Jongin’s gaze strayed apart from his eyes and fell down his nose, bounced on top of his lips, then glided along his cheek back up to his eyes. His features were so soft. Maybe that was why he felt so consoling.

Chanyeol just wanted to sit with him. That wasn’t much, perhaps, but that felt like a lot. Jongin knew there was nothing Chanyeol could do that would make him feel less sad. That wasn’t really how it worked. He wished it was, but it wasn’t. Not being alone through it, however, knowing that Chanyeol would stay with him through it was an alleviation Jongin knew he needed.

They sat together. For a long while, a short moment, Jongin couldn’t tell. It didn’t feel as laggy with Chanyeol next to him, with his shoulder pressing against his, with his gaze occasionally resting on Jongin’s face.

It didn’t feel as sluggish and ponderous anymore, not as huge and pulverizing anymore, with Chanyeol there, with the constant movement of his presence right by his side.

Sleep didn’t come to him that often, but when it did come, it was the sweetest sensation ever.

Closing his eyes and letting himself be held him somewhere between consciousness and slumber was part of it, for Jongin. He wasn’t awake, wasn’t fully asleep either, he was lost somewhere in-between those two opposite realms, feeling his body but not feeling his mind.

What he could feel, for sure, was the comfort blanketed around him. Chanyeol’s arms might have ruined every other blanket in the world for him.

Jongin didn’t know how long they’d been in bed for, he didn’t know when they’d gotten here, nor since when was Chanyeol holding him and trying to lull him into slumber, but for the first time ever, he wished time would remain warped into lethargy forever. Just so this would never end.

He felt tenderness rubbing into his nape in the shape of Chanyeol’s fingertips, felt it soak into his hair with each caress, felt his eyes fluttering open. But that was only in his mind, a moment later, they were still closed.

Jongin tried again, he shouldn’t open his eyes, he should let his body settle into sleep, it seemed like such a rare occurrence that he shouldn’t chase it away, but his eyes fluttered open and Chanyeol was nothing but a blurry, thin stripe in his gaze and yet, the sight was sweeter than a dream.

It felt nice. Feeling Chanyeol against him, being held. He didn’t know when it started, but it felt nice. There was movement on Chanyeol’s face, maybe a smile. Jongin couldn’t see it very well, he was too close and foggy for him to see his entire face. He still smiled back. Just smiled. Chanyeol made him want to smile, even if Jongin could barely even feel his own face over the numbness of drowsiness.

He got closer and Jongin closed his eyes just in time to truly feel the appeasement pressed into his temple. Lips. Appeasement on Chanyeol’s lips. It felt like cotton warmth seeping right into his pores, right into the deepest corner of his mind.

Jongin’s eyes didn’t open again but his arm pulled Chanyeol closer to him on its own. Jongin didn’t feel anxious, didn’t feel sorrowful, didn’t even feel himself falling asleep. He felt nothing but Chanyeol.

Jongin looked at the food displayed, pursing his lips as he thought about what attracted him.

Lisa had already set her eyes on a brownie, Olivia and Lucas were discussing what tasted better between apple tart and lemon tart, loud and probably funny if Jongin paid attention to them. But he didn’t really, he tried his hardest to see what he wanted to eat. It was hard to know what he wanted nowadays. He just stared at the options, the strawberry cake, the chocolate and butter croissants, the doughnuts.

He wasn’t really that hungry but there was an hour left until their next class and they usually came down to the cafeteria for an afternoon snack around 4 o’clock. Jongin stared and stared, wondered if he should just take something to drink instead, coffee, or maybe he was hungry enough for an actual sandwich.

He wasn’t. He should’ve told them that he wasn’t. But Olivia bypassed him and looked very happy while ordering her apple tart. It was okay. Lucas hummed behind his shoulder, said something and then laughed. Jongin laughed along even if he hadn’t processed those words yet. They felt draggy, a bit stuffed, barely even reaching his ears. His stomach hurt a little. Or maybe it was his chest. Or maybe those two parts of him had become one, sawn together by a distressful feeling. Like a beat. But not one produced out of any kind of good emotion.

Lucas asked him if he was ready to order, Jongin shook his head, then didn’t reply to his next words as he stepped to the cashier and ordered his own food. A donut. Lucas always, always knew that he wanted a donut. Jongin never knew much but right at this moment, as he stared at all these different pastries in front of him, as he looked at the guy standing next to him and staring as well, as he heard Olivia and Lisa laughing in the background, a bit too loudly, enough for it to echo in his head, he knew one thing. He really didn’t want to be here.

He really didn’t want to stay here for another class. He just wanted to go home, he didn’t want to eat anything or talk to anyone or listen to ramblings about theater. He wanted to lock himself in his room and read or watch something that took enough room in his head for him not to have to use it to think about anything else.

But that was silly. Because Jongin could barely even focus on reading anything. He hadn’t read a single poem in a week. He could only watch things and realize that he’d missed part of it and then continue watching it because restarting the same episode twice would ruin it and ruin his own image of himself.

Taking a deep breath in, Jongin felt his chest puffing up with it. It was still puffed up by the time he’d exhaled it all out. Even his body wasn’t fully coordinated anymore, half of it much, much slower than the other. There was nothing he could do about that.

He felt tired. He felt his eyes blinking much too slowly and not entirely opening up. But there was nothing he could do about that. He had to go to class, he had to eat with his friends, he had to talk to them, he just had to live through this and it shouldn’t be so difficult. But it was. It just was.

But there was nothing he could do about it except wait. So he ordered a donut, raspberry flavored, to make the wait just a little more bearable. He’d give it to Lucas if even eating that was unbearable.

"You still don’t have a phone?" Jongin asked, eyes stuck to the screen. Not on what it displayed but on how small his phone looked in Chanyeol’s hands and how strong his thumbs looked whenever they swiped candies here and there and created little explosions.

Playing a game as lame as Candy Crush shouldn’t be so attractive. Thumbs shouldn’t look so appealing.

"Nope," Chanyeol said, a beat too late, only once he’d aligned enough blue candy to get an explosive one. "Still don’t got one."

Jongin shifted until his legs were crossed, hand unconsciously straightening the blanket beneath them. His mother had made his bed this morning, he’d gone to school without making it. He would probably get a long nagging about tidiness once she’d come home, in less than an hour. Chanyeol should probably leave soon. But he looked a bit too handsome for Jongin to let him go, with his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, his lips either parted open or crushed beneath his teeth. He took this game as seriously as Jongin did, much too seriously.

"How do you live without a phone?" Jongin asked, genuinely impressed. Or scared. It had been months. Two months that Chanyeol had no phone and Jongin was pretty sure normal people wouldn’t be able to go that long without it.

"It’s better this way," Chanyeol said and as soon as his voice died down, little splatters crashed sound against the window. It started raining. Chanyeol always wore hoodies but that wasn’t enough against the rain. He should probably give him an umbrella on his way out. "There’s no one to ask you where you are or tell you what to do."

"Just what do people ask you to do exactly?" Jongin laughed, the sound tinted with intrigue.

He’d said the same exact thing when they’d first met and Jongin still didn’t know what that answer meant. He knew more now than he did back then, he knew Chanyeol had been involved in shady stuff, but if he’d gotten out of it then why would people still call him and ask him to do things. He didn’t know who these people even were. He didn’t know what Chanyeol had been doing exactly. He didn’t know how he’d gotten out of it. He didn’t know what he did now to get by.

As Jongin watched Chanyeol groaning in frustration when he only had one swipe left and still many gummy bears to free from beneath frozen ice, he realized that he actually knew next to nothing about Chanyeol.

He locked the phone when the game ended with defeat and looked at Jongin with a nonchalant twitch to his eyebrows.

"This and that," he said, handing the phone to him.

Jongin felt his face hardening into a frown.

He always did this. Always escaped questions, answered without truly giving anything away. Chanyeol was the closest person to him at the moment, they even shared a bed from time to time, but Jongin barely knew enough about him to label him as more than a stranger.

The rain petered out, the room growing more silent. Chanyeol furrowed his eyebrows and raised the phone until it was level with Jongin’s face and almost bumped into his nose. Usually, Jongin would pull back, exaggerate the gesture, whine, do something back to make them both laugh. Not this time. He knew how to make Chanyeol laugh but that was it.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like sharing so much of himself without it being returned. It didn’t make him feel threatened, it just made him feel untrusted.

"You know so much about me," he said, voice a bit stronger than the rain that picked right back up. It might storm. He grabbed the phone from Chanyeol and put it down. Chanyeol’s hand dropped to his thigh. "You know what I eat for breakfast every day. You know what my mother tells me that always gets me to cry. You know my favorite poems." Chanyeol’s frown deepened the more he spoke. Jongin didn’t even raise his voice, didn’t even sound that sad. And yet Chanyeol knew. That was how much Chanyeol knew him. "Compared to that, I know nothing about you."

"You know a lot of things about me," Chanyeol countered right away, keeping his voice soft, mollifying his frown. He wasn’t upset. He just wanted Jongin to believe him.

"I don’t even know your last name," Jongin said, voice stained with a deprecating snort. That was the most basic piece of information. Chanyeol had never given it to him.

Chanyeol rarely gave him anything. He just listened, gave comfort, but never gave himself away.

Jongin didn’t know Chanyeol. He really didn’t know him and the realization squeezed his chest into discomfort. He liked Chanyeol, he _liked_ someone he barely even knew. It shouldn’t have happened, not like that. Not when he had no clue as to what Chanyeol did whenever they weren’t together.

But when Chanyeol’s hand moved form his thigh to Jongin’s, right above his knee, nothing about that felt wrong or uncalled for. It felt just like what Jongin wanted.

"It’s just me. Park Chanyeol," Chanyeol said, looking at him through the large earnestness in his eyes. Jongin hadn’t heard the rest of his answer and yet he already knew it wasn’t one that he wanted. It didn’t make him feel nice to hear his last name. It didn’t come from Chanyeol. Jongin had had to ask for it to be shared. It was barely even willing. "There’s nothing more you need to know about me. You know a lot. It’s just me, I’m only what you see. Nothing more."

That made no sense. A person wasn’t just what was seen when they faced you. It was much more than that, it was likes, and dislikes, and worries, and emotions, and wants, and a story. Jongin knew a few of these things about Chanyeol. But what he knew was nothing compared to what he _should_ know after so much time spent together.

But Chanyeol’s touch was warm and reassuring. His gaze was sincere and his lips told Jongin to believe him even without moving to shape another word. He knew Chanyeol was kind, attentive, a really good friend. Jongin knew enough to like him.

And he didn’t like this. He didn’t like this answer, he didn’t like this foreign aspect of Chanyeol’s. He wanted more, much more than what Chanyeol was willing to give him. It was unfair.

It was unfair but tiring. Jongin didn’t want to fight for this, didn’t want to pressure Chanyeol and make him upset or feel like Jongin didn’t think that what they had was enough. It was enough, in certain aspects. That should be enough. He was too tired to tell Chanyeol it was enough but it still hurt just a little not to be given more. He’d ask another time.

"Do you wanna watch the beginning of a movie?" he asked instead, because that was easier and that would make him happy.

Chanyeol looked at him for a silent moment then pulled his hand away, smiling at him, soft and perhaps grateful.

He’d ask another time. He would. He would ask why Chanyeol didn’t want him to truly know him. But not today.

In the next two weeks, Jongin saw Mark in class only twice. The message came while he was playing on his computer.

He waited the end of his game to grab his phone and lean against the backrest. He’d been playing for a while, enough for his eyes to feel a little weird. As soon as he opened up the message sent to their group chat, the feeling vanished, thrown away by the abrupt rise of his eyebrows.

_I’m gonna drop out of school at the end of the year_

_I’m only continuing because there’s like two months left anyway and at least that way I’ll have two complete years_

_I won’t be there a lot though I’m gonna try and find a job for now mostly_

_Just wanted to let you guys know_

Jongin frowned as he read the messages sent ten minutes ago. No one had replied, no one was online either, not even Mark anymore. He’d known these messages would come eventually, he knew Mark didn’t want to keep going, but reading them was still unpleasant. He hadn’t been able to help him enough to make him want to stay in school.

He pursed his lips and typed his message.

_Are you sure that’s what you want to do?_

_It’s gonna be a little difficult for you if you drop out_

He stared at his message once it was sent, worrying his bottom lip under his teeth, waiting for his message to be read. He really didn’t think this was a good idea. What would he do? Would he be able to find a job? He lived on his own, would his parents still help him if he dropped out of school? Would he ever be able to find a good job without having a full degree?

Jongin had the time to go through various horrifying scenarios in his head while waiting, but his message was never read. He locked his phone, dropped his hand against his thigh, and sighed. The others hadn’t seen it either yet.

He should do something to keep himself busy. Before he had time to figure out what he wanted to do, his phone lit up and he quickly raised it closer to his face. It wasn’t Mark, just Jongdae apologizing for having dropped the conversation they’d been having earlier with no warning. He’d had to go run an errand for his mother.

Before Jongin could reply, another message came.

_I really don’t know what to do_

_I really don’t like the idea of her being with someone else_

They’d been talking about Jongdae’s ex again. Jongdae had apparently gotten very upset at her for having talked about another guy. From what Jongin understood, the guy was just a friend she’d mentioned in passing but Jongdae had made a big deal out of it. Which Jongin could understand, he still had feelings for her despite everything.

This was a mess. This situation was much more complicated than it should be but Jongin supposed that was easy to say when he wasn’t part of said situation. He just wished Jongdae would be happy soon. His friend didn’t deserve this amount of unsureness and emotional torture. She wasn’t doing it on purpose, he supposed, but Jongin still found it very cruel of her to want to remain friends with Jongdae after breaking up with him. He also knew Jongdae would never be able to cut the ties off by himself.

_Tell her then_ , he typed. _You just got angry at her without even telling her why. She probably figured it out but still, hearing it loud and clear would be better._

They just never talked. They talked so often, so much, but Jongin felt like they kept avoiding the elephant in the room. Or the heartbreak in the room. He knew it would only get worse if this went on and he really, really didn’t want Jongdae to be heartbroken, more than he already was since she broke up with him. He deserved better. He really did. She wasn’t a bad person and he was in no position to judge, he didn’t know everything that was said between them, but from outside, this just looked really bad.

_But she broke up with me_

_We’re just friends now_

_I shouldn’t be having these reactions_

Jongin reached for the bottle of water at the corner of his desk, gulping at it for a moment. He pressed his lips together while screwing the cap on then grabbed his phone again.

_Jongdae you’re human_

_You have feelings and feelings are normal and if you have them, you can’t blame yourself_

_You’re not just friends you still love her and no one, not even yourself, can blame you for that_

_I think this is the occasion to tell her how you feel about this_

_Don’t keep it to yourself just tell her whatever you’re feeling tell her everything_

He closed off the conversation and switched to the group chat instead. Mark had read his message. Jongin waited for a moment, watching. No answer came. He sighed. That was okay. Mark would reply later, probably.

He switched back to the conversation with Jongdae when a notification was displayed on the screen.

_Yeah you’re right_

_I really don’t want this to go on any further_

_I don’t think I can do this anymore_

_I’ll just talk to her and see what happens_

Jongin tugged the corners of his lips up. That was a good first step.

_It’s gonna be alright!_

_No matter what happens in the end, this will help you two_

_Good luck!!!!_

He switched to the group chat when a message from Lisa came in.

_If that’s what you think is best for you, you should definitely do that!_

_We’re here for you <3_

Mark instantly read the message and replied with a _thank you_.

Jongin sighed and put his phone down. He looked for another game to play.

"Do you think he’ll be okay?"

Lisa hummed, looking at the tram going by a few centimeters away from them only. The tram rails right in front of the train station were a mess, trams came from all sides and sometimes they had to wait in the middle of it all to cross the street and reach the station.

"I think he’s taking the best decision for himself," she said, smiling at a child staring out of the passing tram’s window.

"You won’t miss your train, right?" he asked, checking the time on his phone.

She was going back home for the weekend and Jongin accompanied her to the station, because he really didn’t have anything else to do and he knew she hated waiting for her train alone.

"No, I still got ten minutes, it’ll be okay," she said, checking her phone as well then tugging her suitcase closer to herself. "Maybe more, if the train’s late."

"Alright then," Jongin snorted, shoving the phone and his hands in his hoodie’s pockets. France’s railway system sucked. Lisa’s train was late way too often.

They started walking again once the tram finished driving by, heading to the station’s entrance. A homeless man was sitting on the floor, right next to one of the doors, constantly asking for money to whoever passed by. Jongin didn’t look at him, walking past him and engulfing into the entrance hall with Lisa. He’d once given money to someone in front of the train station and a security guard had called him out on it, claiming that it was illegal to panhandle in or in front of the train station.

"You’re very worried," Lisa said, stopping next to the stairs and turning to him, hand still holding onto her luggage.

Jongin moved his arms forward in a semblance of a shrug, hands still in his pockets.

He really was. They’d talked with Mark a bit since his announcement last weekend but they hadn’t talked about that topic. Just normal stuff like movies and books and silly things they all found funny. Jongin had said nothing, even though Mark had never actually replied to his message back then, but he still thought about it.

"I’m just a little sad," Jongin confessed, voice halfway eaten by the few musical notes echoing inside the hall, introducing an announcement for a train. "I feel like we didn’t help him enough."

"Jongin," Lisa said, shaping his name into a sigh and her eyebrows into a frown. "You don’t want to help him. You want to fix his life."

"I don’t," Jongin instantly countered, mirroring her expression.

"You do," she said, the way her last word ended in half a laugh lightening her insistence. "That’s what you always want to do."

Jongin shook his head, not a denial but a sign that he didn’t really want to agree with her.

"I just want to help him," he said again, for lack of anything else to say. His fingers played with a corner of his phone in his pocket.

"I know," Lisa said, a single nod weighing down on her words. Someone loudly walked past them with their luggage, Jongin didn’t look away from the understanding veil on her features. "But you can’t fix everything. Stop trying to do that and then feeling bad when it doesn’t happen. You can’t find a solution to everything. Let it go."

Jongin’s gaze had dropped down to the floor halfway through her words. He knew. That was what he always did. Deep down, he knew. He was just trying to help, he just wanted the people he cared about to feel okay and avoid any kind of trouble in their life.

"I’ll try," he still said, because maybe she was right. Maybe he should try and not care that much about everything. Try and stop thinking that it was his duty to make sure everything was going well for everyone. "But it’s a little difficult," he said, laughing emptily, just to decorate his words.

"I know," Lisa smiled, still just as understanding. "But as long as you try, it’s okay." She looked at her phone again then. "I’ll go now. The train should probably be there soon, I’ll try and grab a seat."

Jongin nodded, bidding her goodbye and waiting for her to disappear down the stairs to head to the platform. She always preferred using the tunnel rather than going upstairs to the main hall and then finding her way to the platforms.

Once she was gone, Jongin turned around and headed out of the station with a sigh, still thinking about their conversation. He really should try and tone it down. But he wasn’t sure why it was wrong of him to worry so much about his friends. He just cared about them.

Outside, he stood right in front of the station, unsure where he wanted to go. A cyclist passed right behind him a bit too fast and Jongin stepped aside to leave way for the several people coming in from the tram stop with their luggage. He could go home directly or take the tram to the opposite direction and swing by the supermarket or go to the shopping mall and hang out. He had a hard time thinking with how loud the two elderly ladies were talking on his left.

He looked at them, one of them had bright pink shoes. It was a little cute, contrary to the conversation they were holding. Jongin looked at the building a few meters away, on the second floor. That was where there’d been a fire months ago, the surroundings of the windows were still stained black, it still made him feel as morbid as the day he’d passed in front of it, right after the fire was extinguished. The lady with the pink shoes said someone had lost their life in that fire. The other lady, with very long white hair, argued that the fire had seemed too small for that.

Jongin zipped his bag open and retrieved his earphones from inside. He should go and buy skittles. It was a skittles kind of day.

03:26.

It had been a long time since Jongin had last struggled this much to sleep. He hadn’t missed it.

He hadn’t missed the sensation of pounding in his head, the impression that something was stretching his eyelids open, straining his eyes, the helplessness coming from how slow the night was passing and yet, how soon morning would come. Without him having been able to sleep.

He hadn’t missed the endless tossing and turning, right, left, back, left, front, left.The more he tried to tire his body out, the more his mind was crumbling into depletion. Or something else. He wasn’t sure. He was starting to lose track of his mind. He could barely comprehend where his thoughts were going, from that last text he’d read for school to how soap even worked. How could a few bubbles clean skin entirely?

He should grab his phone. He turned to lay on his right side. But he’d checked the time earlier. he didn’t want to check again. He didn’t want to realize that maybe an hour had passed and he still couldn’t bring himself to fall asleep. He wondered if something in his brain was broken. That would explain a few things. But how could that be repaired without splitting his head open?

Jongin needed to sleep. He sighed, stopped himself from diving further into delirious thoughts. He really _needed_ to sleep. Last night had been no different. He’d barely slept three hours. He just wanted to sleep. But he didn’t know how to sleep anymore.

He crumbled the blanket in his fists and tugged it higher, covering his chin with it, rolling his foot around the bottom of it. He needed Chanyeol to sleep. That was the only lucid thought in the muddiness spreading through his head. Sleeping was easier, more pleasant when Chanyeol was with him. But Chanyeol couldn’t always be with him. People had lives. People had to live apart from Jongin. People could very well live without Jongin’s help.

He had no Chanyeol to sleep with. He rubbed a hand over his face. He was a little thirsty but he feared sitting up would awake him even further. He didn’t need that. He needed to sleep. He needed to imagine Chanyeol with him to sleep. Yes. That was the next best thing. It always worked. It always felt as if Chanyeol was just right there.

If Chanyeol were here, he’d have an arm around Jongin. He tightened the blanket around him, feeling it snug against his back. Chanyeol would feel warmer. He’d have his nose somewhere against Jongin’s head, buried in his hair or against his nape. They always woke up apart but they fell asleep tangled, enough for Jongin to feel him all around, enough for his presence to lull him into slumber. Lull. Lullaby. Chanyeol’s breath would be that lullaby.

Jongin rubbed his cheek against the pillow, nestling into its cushiness. If Chanyeol were here, it wouldn’t be silent, he’d be able to hear him breathe. He imagined it. Chanyeol, with him, holding him, hugging him, tight, it would be comforting, it would feel just right, cozy, Chanyeol would be holding him and sleeping with him and breathing. Chanyeol breathing. Chanyeol would be breathing.

Jongin’s eyes opened, his breath felt warm and wet on his own skin, held by the blanket covering half of his face. Chanyeol breathing. Jongin recalled everything. He recalled his hold and his voice and his gaze. But he had no clue as to what Chanyeol’s breathing sounded. Did Chanyeol even ever breathe? Of course, he breathed. Jongin’s eyes felt weary, exhausted by how fast his mind ran behind his eye sockets. Somewhere there. He didn’t remember ever listening to Chanyeol breathe. He didn’t remember hearing Chanyeol breathing.

Maybe he just hadn’t noticed it. Yes. Breathing wasn’t something you noticed. Not in one’s self, not in other people. It just was something that happened. That was heard. But Jongin had never heard it coming from Chanyeol. But Jongin also had wondered if rocks breathed, an hour ago. But Chanyeol wasn’t a rock, he was a person spending time with Jongin who couldn’t imagine him breathing because he had never heard it. Or had he?

His own breath grew too fast and too short and too lacking. His stomach felt a little off, a little too tight, a little too empty, a little too alive, punching Jongin with the sensation of it folding upon itselfand then unfolding again.

That didn’t make sense. He just couldn’t imagine it. Just like he couldn’t imagine Chanyeol interacting with anyone else. His room was a little too dark. He’d never seen Chanyeol interacting with anyone ever. That was normal, it was night. Or morning. He hoped it wasn’t morning yet. He had never seen Chanyeol with anyone, had never heard Chanyeol talk about anyone. Except his mother.

Jongin turned to lay on his back, throwing his arm to the right, fist bouncing on the mattress but not throwing off the panic growing in his head. Or his chest. Or his breath.

He knew nothing about Chanyeol. He didn’t even know how he sounded when he was breathing. He knew nothing about Chanyeol. But Jongin knew nothing at all. He didn’t even know how to sleep. He turned to lay on his front, sliding his hands under the pillow in a very uncomfortable position. He knew nothing. He needed to sleep. He really needed to think and reflect and remember what Chanyeol sounded like when he breathed.

But it didn’t work. He needed it to work to be able to sleep but it just didn’t work.

Jongin tried to make it work, for two whole days or an additional hour. When he eventually fell asleep, he couldn’t even dream of Chanyeol breathing.

The next day, Jongin still couldn’t remember the sound of Chanyeol’s breathing. He shouldn’t obsess over it too much. But he spent his morning classes thinking about it, he spent his breaks thinking about it instead of participating to conversations, he spent half of his commuting time thinking about it.

Not that he really had anything else much to do. A homeless man was in the tram with his dog and while the dog was big and silent and cute, the scent was big and unpleasant. Jongin stared at the animal laying in the middle of the train, its eyes blinking softly. It had a black stain right next to its left eye, almost like a mole. A precious detail.

Chanyeol had a mole on his nose. A nose Jongin had never heard breathing. He was tired of thinking about this, fixating himself on this. But it was weird. He’d been delirious last night but now, while still lacking much sleep, he was lucid. And it was still weird. Something didn’t add up. Something in his stomach didn’t want to stay down.

His phone lit up and he looked down at it. His friends were talking on the group chat. Mark was joking around, mocking them about having to go to class everyday while he could stay at home and binge show after show. Calling himself unemployed. A lazy failure. As a joke.

Jongin exhaled longly, loudly, and unlocked his phone. He didn’t like this.

_How are you gonna pass the year if you never come to class though?_ he typed, thumbs fast and strong against the screen. _You said you wanted to drop out at the end of the year so you’d have two full years. How’s that gonna happen? You won’t be able to pass the exams if you don’t come to class and take notes. Are you even sure you want to drop out? What will you do? Are you sure you can live that life? You don’t even want us to help you._

He pressed send before he could even read over the message and locked his phone. He looked out the window, exhaling another stretched breath. He was tired. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to be able to do something correctly. He couldn’t even help his friends. He couldn’t even sleep.

The tram stopped abruptly, enough for people standing to lose their balance, enough for Jongin to hurt his neck a little with the reverberation. When it started driving again, his phone lit up. He took a deep breath in, regretted it when it was stench that he breathed in, then exhaled again, turning his phone towards him. He unlocked it.

_Jongin I don’t need you to help me_

_I don’t need you to scold me either_

_I just need you to support me but all you’re doing is make me question myself and stress me out and make me feel like I’m fucking up by doing what’s best for me_

_If you have nothing nice to say about this just don’t say anything_

Jongin locked his phone, rubbed a hand over his face stretching his nose, scratching his cheek, dragging an eyelid to the side. That wasn’t what he meant, it wasn’t what he wanted Mark to feel. He didn’t want to upset him. He should’ve chosen his words more carefully. He just wanted to help. He shouldn’t have insisted so much. He wasn’t helping, he was pressuring. This was wrong.

He didn’t reply to the message. He didn’t want to deal with it. He saw that everyone in the group had read it. No one said anything. He should’ve listened to Lisa. He locked his phone again and stood up. It was his stop. He should stop.

His feet felt very heavy as he headed home. Or maybe he wasn’t heading home. The journey felt too long, too excruciating, much too big for him.

When he reached home, he was hungry, he hadn’t stayed with the others for lunch, but his body wouldn’t be able to accept anything but his bed so he quickly went up to his room. When he opened the door, his bed had already accepted someone other than him.

Chanyeol was sitting on his bed, a book in hand. The one he’d started a while ago. He hadn’t read it in over a week. He looked up at Jongin. It felt like it took him a thousand years. Jongin’s body was so tense it felt like his body was still in the midst of movement, his arm moving to push the door open. It wasn’t. Jongin was just distorted, felt irregular. This should feel weird. Chanyeol smiled at him, greeted him. Jongin heard nothing, said nothing. This was weird. It should be. His parents weren’t even home. Chanyeol could’ve waited for him outside. How did he get here? This had never felt weird but Jongin didn’t remember Chanyeol’s breathing and this now, felt like the weirdest thing he’d ever stepped into.

Had he stepped into it? Had it stepped into him? He didn’t know. He walked into the room and closed the door behind him. Chanyeol always appeared. He always appeared. They never met up, he just popped out of nowhere. How could Jongin never notice him around until he was only two steps away?

"Are you okay?" Chanyeol asked and this time Jongin heard it properly.

"Yeah," he said, walking towards the bed, staring at Chanyeol’s frown. The same haircut. Yet another hoodie. He looked concerned. He sat up, crossing his legs. "What are you reading?" Jongin asked, despite knowing very well.

He sat in front of Chanyeol, mimicked his posture by crossing his legs, leaning his elbows on his thighs, getting as close to Chanyeol as possible. He looked at the cover when Chanyeol showed it to him. _Perfume: The Story of a Murderer_. Jongin’s gaze moved from the book to Chanyeol’s chest.

"It’s pretty good," Chanyeol said, a bit of a chirp in his voice. Jongin didn’t look at him, he observed the absence of a rise and fall on his chest. "All the scent descriptions are amazing. It’s like I can smell everything just by reading it." Maybe it was just the clothes and the position. Jongin looked at Chanyeol’s nose instead. He saw nothing. He listened instead, as Chanyeol said nothing and looked at him. It was his turn to speak but Jongin couldn’t focus on anything but the absolute silence broken by his own breath. And nothing else. "What’s wrong? Did something happen at school?"

There was nothing. There truly was nothing. Even Jongin’s own breath was growing silent, just in case it was too loud, just because it might overpower another breath. But it didn’t. There was nothing to overpower. Jongin’s breath remained halfway stuck in his throat, refusing a lone world. Because it was the only breath in the room.

"Why aren’t you breathing?"

Jongin’s question sounded much too loud, in the emptiness of the room, in the unwillingness to actually pronounce it. It wasn’t just a delirious question popping in his head because of insomnia. It was a question that needed to be asked because he still couldn’t hear it.

Chanyeol looked at him for a moment. His frown unraveled. Jongin would’ve preferred it to stay, would’ve preferred concern to be on that face rather than the strain he could see. He looked down, away from Jongin, and closed the book, holding it on his lap.

"You’re not breathing," Jongin said, this time. Because it sounded less silly.

It still felt ridiculous. It should. It didn’t really. Because Chanyeol didn’t give him a weirded out look, didn’t laugh at his face, didn’t tell him he was hallucinating or was crazy or just needed a really long good night’s sleep. Chanyeol did none of that. Instead, he looked at Jongin again, eyebrows slanted upwards.

"I didn’t know how to tell you," he said, voice sounding much weaker than usual, than what it really was. It was an ugly tone. Jongin didn’t want to hear it. "I just–" He stopped, shaking his head, keeping his lips parted, raising his shoulders before dropping them again.

"Tell me what?" Jongin said, laughter turning his last word into a cacophony. Chanyeol should be laughing at him. He wasn’t. So Jongin laughed instead. It didn’t come out of his mouth, merely puffed his throat enough for it to hurt a little.

Chanyeol didn’t look away from him. Jongin wished he did. That would mean he was lying and this was a joke, a prank.

"I’m," Chanyeol said, lips still moving after he was done making any sound, moving mutedly, with no forms produced.

He looked agitated, fingers playing with the book, head shaking the slightest bit, shoulders unsteady. He looked agitated and taken aback and then, he looked down and away from Jongin. Not a lie. Guilt. Guilt that made Chanyeol look very small in front of Jongin.

And Jongin looked at him. Truly looked at him. Looked at the paleness of his skin, looked at the eternally undisrupted hair, looked at things he remembered. Chanyeol not breathing. Chanyeol always finding him wherever he was. Chanyeol appearing out of nowhere, soundlessly. Chanyeol waiting for him in his room when no one was even home. Chanyeol not existing anywhere but in front of Jongin. Not breathing.

"Dead?" Jongin asked because that was what not breathing resulted to. It sounded like a sick joke. He should laugh at it. But Chanyeol was still not laughing and Jongin’s throat felt too spiked for him to be able to laugh. He could barely even swallow properly.

"Yeah," Chanyeol said, instead of laughing. He still had time to laugh. He could still laugh. It was still possible. A simple laugh would wipe away all the dejection soaking his face. "I’ve been denying it and having a hard time accepting it. But yeah." Yeah. Just yeah. He didn’t even say it. That could be because it was a joke. "I’m sorry," he said, looking at Jongin with eyes that had never been clearer.

An apology wasn’t a joke. A dead person sitting in front of him wasn’t a person.

"So," Jongin said, waving a hand in front of him. He felt the movement in his own stomach, stirring. He didn’t want to say it. But Chanyeol remained silent. "So you’re what? A ghost? What?" he asked, words meshing together into one big lump of disbelief.

Jongin hated every single supernatural themed show or video or documentary he’d ever watched. They were supposed to be happening only on his screens. He wasn’t supposed to ask that question out loud to someone sitting across him.

Chanyeol pressed his lips together, tugging the corners up. Not a smile. Abandon. Deep enough for his dimple to almost show up. He nodded.

Jongin straightened his back, pulling himself away the tiniest bit. Chanyeol had nodded. He’d nodded and Jongin started laughing. One single sound at first, muted air, then another note, longer, noisier, although not carrying any kind of appreciation. He laughed because he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do, what else he could even do.

"You’re a ghost," he repeated, actually said it out loud. Not a question. A statement. A reality.

His hands felt warm, felt numb. He wasn’t holding anything, he wasn’t touching anything. His entire body felt wrong. Off. Full with the realization that it had all been an illusion. The only thing that felt right for months was nothing but an illusion. A mirage. A ghost. Unreal.

"I’m sorry," Chanyeol said, voice stretched with a pain Jongin felt in his chest. He reached for Jongin but before his hand could touch his thigh, Jongin pushed himself away.

His body felt too heavy when he turned around and got up from the bed. He brought both of his hands up, rubbed his face, felt his shoulders quivering, bouncing up with a laugh that was strangled out of his mouth a moment later. Too late, disproportionate. Unreal. Chanyeol was barely even real. Chanyeol barely even existed. A ghost. This should be a joke. It shouldn’t make so much sense. It shouldn’t.

"I’m sorry for doing all of this to you," Jongin heard and it didn’t make him feel any better. Not the apology, not the febrility of Chanyeol’s tone. His voice sounded the same way Jongin felt after twoalmost entirely sleepless nights.

He shook his head, brought his hands down from his face and held his neck on either side instead, fingers digging. He could barely feel them. He could barely feel anything but the knots in his head, ricochetting against his temples. He didn’t turn around, kept his back to Chanyeol. He needed to think. He needed to realize. A ghost. Chanyeol was a ghost. A real, existing ghost.

Jongin’s mouth remained open until he felt dryness on his tongue, his hands kept pushing down on his neck until the weight turned painful. His eyes looked at his desk without seeing it, for a long moment. He didn’t want to turn around. He wanted to turn around and see Chanyeol because he existed and was real and he wasn’t an illusion, not really an illusion, just barely real, just something else.

But when Jongin turned around, the bed was empty. Chanyeol had vanished. Jongin hadn’t heard the door open, hadn’t seen the window open, hadn’t heard any step. He didn’t know how this worked. Chanyeol had just faded away. He had given him the confirmation Jongin needed to know he wasn’t going crazy.

He didn’t know if that was better. His body dropped on the bed. He remained immobile for a moment. There was no way Chanyeol would get out of this room without Jongin noticing. This was real.

It made sense. Everything made sense. He knew nothing about Chanyeol. Because Chanyeol was nothing but what Jongin could see. His throat tied up into a knot, harshly enough for the burn to reverberate in his eyes. He blinked, blinked, blinked and that was all he could do. Nothing else. His body refused take down the shock overpowering him.

It all made sense. He hated it. He didn’t want to deal with it. He needed to think about it. He didn’t need to. He needed to hang onto reality, onto his own mind. He wasn’t going crazy. That was the worst of it.

He shot up to his feet, grabbed his literature book from the mess on his desk. He needed something real, something he knew, he needed to learn every single literary movement in France and their dates by heart.

Jongin didn’t know what time it was. He didn’t want to know.

It was probably somewhere between two and three. Or maybe one and two. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter that much. For him, nights were full of the same sleepless hours until morning, when he actually closed his eyes and couldn’t open them back up again.

He didn’t know if that would happen tonight, however. He didn’t know if his head would empty enough for him to pass out. Pulling the cover up, Jongin moved his legs until he was laying down on his side with the blanket sandwiched between his knees, eyes opening as he sighed longly. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

The only person that genuinely made him feel happy for the past two months was a ghost. Even now, hours later, that sounded like a joke. A ridiculous one that did not fit the rest of his life at all. Chanyeol wasn’t even real. He folded his knees, feet rubbing together through the blanket seating them. But he was real. Everything about Chanyeol was real, including the way he made Jongin feel. Soothed.

He sighed again, lowering his head until his nose was devoured by the blanket. Sighing was tiring. Being sad was tiring. Jongin had felt nothing but exhaustion for weeks, even though he did nothing but brood around like a sad cliché and lay around like the lazy person he’d never really been. He didn’t know why this feeling consumed so much of him so strongly. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do now that the only person who made it bearable was stuck somewhere between reality and surreality.

Looking towards his window, he observed the faint hue of orange coming from the streetlights on the other side of the blinds. He pressed his lips together, rubbing them together, feeling the dry patches of skin cling to each other and protrude. He thought back on his research. He’d spent the rest of the day, after Chanyeol had vanished, looking up whatever he could find about ghosts. Jongin had felt very ridiculous while googling what ghosts were, what they looked like, how they existed. It was ridiculous. It wasn’t the same feeling as watching Buzzfeed Unsolved videos and even that thought was ridiculous.

Or miserable. A bit pitiful. The guy he maybe like more than a friend turned out to be dead and a spirit, an entity that barely even existed. But he existed. He was real. Jongin had touched him, had felt him. He had no idea how that was even possible considering what he was. He knew nothing. Jongin really knew nothing about this, nothing about Chanyeol.

He closed his eyes when he felt his face scrunching up on its own will, something somewhere in his chest pinching the rest of his body into balling up. This was why he knew nothing about Chanyeol. This was why Chanyeol never said anything about himself, never shared information. He’d just been hiding who and what he was.

Jongin took a deep breath in through his nose, let it out through his mouth, febrile and shaky. It felt like his last breath, his throat closed up instantly after that and he felt his cheeks hardening, his eyebrows furrowing, and his eyes burning a little. He didn’t cry, however, just pulled his legs up closer to his chest, thought about the way Chanyeol had just vanished from his room, balled up the blanket in his hands to tighten it around him. It hugged his body snuggly and Jongin closed his eyes again, enjoying the warmth around him.

It soothed him a little bit, like a hug Jongin never dared to ask from anyone. Like an arm around his waist and a chest protecting his back from the cold coming from the wall behind him. He burrowed into it, stretching his legs again because his knees were starting to hurt. The feeling of security remained despite his body not being gathered together anymore. That feeling was familiar, a consolation that Jongin was granted some nights. Some other nights, he felt none of it and struggled until morning. He didn’t know why today was one of those nights when his bed decided to comfort him.

His eyes opened. He didn’t move, trying his hardest to focus on the bodily sensations all over him. All around him. It felt like it was all around him. It felt like when he thought about Chanyeol being there with him, because he slept best when Chanyeol was next to him. He held his breath for a moment, listening, hearing nothing but the wind sliding against the blinds, feeling nothing but something that wasn’t really there. Something that was there without really being there.

"Chanyeol?" he called, a whisper muffled by the blanket covering his mouth. He pressed his lips together, waited in silence, rigid because he was scared of moving. Not scared. Just unsure what he was supposed to do, if he was being ridiculous again.

But there was nothing ridiculous about the situation. It was real. And Jongin was pretty sure he wasn’t losing it yet, his head was still in place. So he turned around, slowly, carefully, and felt Chanyeol’s hand sliding on his waist before he even saw his face centimeters away from his, resting on the pillow.

Jongin couldn’t see him properly, it was dark, but he’d felt him, he still felt him now, in the way his stomach did something weird, like a squeeze or a drop. Or maybe that was just the feeling he had whenever Chanyeol’s gaze met his and refused to move away. Even now, Jongin hoped Chanyeol refused to look away, hoped Chanyeol liked looking at him.

"You were here all along," Jongin whispered, gaze moving over the slope of Chanyeol’s nose, lingering where he thought the mole he couldn’t see was.

He should be creeped out. He really should be creeped out because there was a ghost in his bed that had appeared seconds ago and that had been there for a while and that had probably been around Jongin without Jongin even knowing more than a few times. But it was just Chanyeol. He’d never been creeped out by Chanyeol, never weirded out. Just because it was Chanyeol.

There was so many things Jongin didn’t know, didn’t understand, things that made him feel like he was living in a different reality, but there was one thing he knew. Chanyeol cared for him. Chanyeol had always been there for him.

"Most of the time," Chanyeol answered after a moment of silence, eyes glimmering just a little, enough for Jongin to notice he was going back and forth between Jongin’s eyes.

His hand had slid away from his waist but he was still laying just as close, not moving away. They’d been in this situation many times before. This felt different and yet, still the same. It was hard to tell what was different when Chanyeol looked the same and felt the same to Jongin, but something had changed. Nothing major, probably not as big as it should be. Jongin knew it should be. It wasn’t. Chanyeol had been there for him even when Jongin couldn’t see it. He’d helped him get through much more nights than he thought. All those nights when he’d felt like his blanket was hugging him.

He didn’t know what to say. He had many things to ask, many things to say, but he felt good for the first time today and he wanted to savor it without anything muddying his head. But Chanyeol was silent, more than usual, he was unmoving. That was what felt odd, maybe.

"So you can become invisible at will?" Jongin settled on asking then, because he wasn’t sure this was the moment to talk about anything they usually talked about. And because he was curious. "Or is it that you can take on a physical form at will?"

Weird questions. Jongin felt dumb just asking them.

"Not really," Chanyeol replied right away, however, without waiting. Jongin’s lips twitched. He’d been waiting for Jongin to say something. "My physical form is my normal form. Disappearing is actually what takes me a lot of energy."

"I see," Jongin said, after a moment if silence. It didn’t sound absurd. Not that much. He just didn’t know how they were supposed to have this conversation yet, he didn’t know what he was supposed to say.

Chanyeol hummed then, just a sharp sound, before moving away from him, putting more distance between them and amplifying it by gathering his arms against his chest. Jongin looked down at the barrier with his lips crushed together.

"I’m sorry," Chanyeol whispered. Even his whispers were loud.

Jongin didn’t know what exactly he was apologizing for. He didn’t know if he liked it. He didn’t want Chanyeol to feel bad, especially not to feel sad. Chanyeol didn’t deserve that feeling.

But what was he even supposed to do? There wasn’t really something to forgive. Or maybe there was. He wasn’t sure. This was unfamiliar and weird and Jongin didn’t know what would be right or what would be wrong. All he knew was that Chanyeol had hid this from him but at the same time, he imagined it would’ve been hard for him to just walk up to Jongin and tell him he was a ghost. Instead, he’d just walked up to Jongin and decided to become his friends. Many times over and over again.

"Why did you leave?" he asked then, the first question of many. He should’ve reacted differently earlier, perhaps. But he couldn’t imagine himself reacting any other way.

Chanyeol raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips. The rest of him remained rigidified between them.

"I was making you sad," he said, looking down. His voice seemed to follow the slope of his gaze.

Jongin followed it too, looked at the blanket between them. He was under it, Chanyeol was on top of it. Usually, Jongin would tell him to get under it but he supposed Chanyeol couldn’t get cold.

"I got sadder once you left," he mumbled instead, choosing to be honest. He’d like this conversation to be honest.

He’d wondered if anything had ever been honest between them earlier in the evening. Then, he’d felt incredibly bad for even just thinking that it wasn’t. He knew it was. Chanyeol had helped him through so many things, Jongin knew nothing but honesty and care would motivate anyone to do that. And this was _Chanyeol_.

"Sorry," he said, scrunching his face. Jongin couldn’t see him entirely but the layer of sourness on his face was thick enough for him to notice it. He was frowning too much.

Chanyeol was always frowning, when he was confused, when he was defending his favorite movie, when he was laughing too hard. But he always looked at Jongin through all of that. Not this time. He was still looking down, somewhere on Jongin’s chin, maybe his chest. He looked even sadder than when they’d been talking about his mother.

Jongin’s chest trembled with a breath too abrupt when he slid his hand out from beneath the blanket. He instantly felt the shift in temperature on his skin, his room had always been a little cold. He wondered if it was cold because of Chanyeol. He didn’t ask, however, instead, he raised his hand, never once looking away from Chanyeol even though there was no gaze willing to meet his. Until he cupped Chanyeol’s cheek, touching it with his fingertips first and then letting his palm press against the plumpness of it.

Chanyeol finally looked at him, eyebrows arched upwards on either side of his nose bridge. Jongin kept his hand there, kept touching him. There was no difference between now and yesterday. His skin felt the same way it did whenever they touched. Except it was softer, because Jongin had never touched Chanyeol’s face before, only his hands and arms and clothed legs.

He was real. His thumb brushed slowness into his cheek. He was there. He was real. Jongin could touch him, had always been able to touch him. It still felt necessary to confirm it, to confirm that there was nothing different about him. Except it felt a little slow now, a dragged motion when his thumb brushed his cheek again, when their eyes met and Jongin felt like he’d taken only one breath in in the timespan of three breaths.

Parting his lips, he waited a moment, jaw tensing up until he could finally push the words out.

"Talk to me," he said, asked.

It was already weird enough for Chanyeol to be so calm and immobile. He needed him to talk. They needed to talk. This needed to be talked about.

"I don’t know what to say," Chanyeol said, last word ending in the skeleton of a laugh. Empty.

He looked very small in Jongin’s bed. He didn’t want Chanyeol to feel small. That was one of the worst feelings in the world, feeling like anything could crush your body at any moment and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

Jongin would stop it. He didn’t want Chanyeol to feel like there was something wrong between them. There wasn’t. Maybe there should be, but Chanyeol meant too much to him. It wasn’t easy to make amends with the fact that Chanyeol existed but wasn’t alive, it sent his mind spiraling down his stomach but not now. He didn’t want to think about that now. He just wanted to communicate.

He hummed for a moment, trying to pick out one question amidst the ones knotted all over his head.

"Is this how you’re always in my room when I’m not there?" he settled on asking. That would explain a lot.

His arm was starting to hurt. He pulled his hand away from Chanyeol, watching him furrow his eyebrows. When his hand laid down on the blanket, Chanyeol’s hand laid down on it. Just the tip of his fingers on the tips of Jongin’s. That was enough for Jongin to want to burrow his face under the blanket. He didn't, because Chanyeol smiled, small and barely genuine, but still there.

"I just thought making you believe I was a window-climber was better than telling you I was a ghost," he said and Jongin was relieved to hear the shadow of a joking tone.

"Fair enough," he snorted, an airy sound. He wouldn’t have believed Chanyeol if he’d said it directly to him. "So you can just teleport wherever you want?" That was kind of cool.

"No, I can just materialize wherever you are." His fingers climbed a bit higher up Jongin’s hand, until the knuckles.

Jongin didn’t look at it, even if it was a pleasant touch, one that monopolized all his senses. There was something on Chanyeol’s face, something in the way he kept his lips twisted, something in the way his gaze was too steady, that told Jongin he should ask more.

"Why?" he asked. Granted his research hadn’t been the most professional and scientific kind, he hadn’t found anything about ghosts only being able to appear around certain people. "Why me only?"

Chanyeol remained silent for a moment. Then, he parted his lips, closed them again. With each time he reproduced the hesitation in that action, Jongin grew more dreadful.

He sighed then, and pulled his hand away from Jongin’s, keeping it a few centimeters away, on the blanket.

"Because you’re mourning me," was what he eventually said, the unwillingness to say it apparent in how quiet he spoke.

"What?" Jongin pronounced amidst a confused sound somewhere between a laugh and a huff.

Chanyeol rubbed a hand over his face. "This is fucked up," he said, just as Jongin took note of the fact that he wasn’t breathing. Now that he knew it, it was difficult to ignore it. "I hate this system," he said behind the hand he kept in front of his mouth and his chin, stretching his face and his words.

"Just tell me," Jongin said, even though he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it anymore. Not when his stomach felt like it was trying to eat him and hide him away from this conversation.

Chanyeol looked at him for another silent moment. There had already been too many of those. He dropped his hand between them again. The blanket was starting to feel too heavy on Jongin. He got his other arm out of it too, pulled it down until it was tucked under his armpits.

"I died in a fire," Chanyeol said. Jongin’s chest felt like it caved in on itself. Died. Chanyeol had died. Hearing it made it realer, more unpleasant. "In my apartment, more than two months ago."

Something tied up in his mind. "Is it the apartment that burned down right in front of the train station? That’s yours?"

When Chanyeol nodded, he felt the skin on his arms swarming with chills. He wanted to hide his arms beneath his blanket again but didn’t, just in case Chanyeol would want to touch his hand again. He’d passed by Chanyeol’s death place almost every day for months.

"My apartment was set on fire, I guess." He was frowning, shaking his head as he spoke. Jongin felt the trembling somewhere in his breath. "I died that day and the next day, I was watching you at the tram stop. Something was just drawing me to you. You were all I could see. Everyone else was blurry for a while. So I knew I just had to be with you."

There was too much information for Jongin to wrap his head around. The more Chanyeol spoke the more there were things he didn’t understand.

"But why am I mourning you?" Jongin asked, voice barely strong enough to leave his mouth.

Mourning implied sorrow. A sorrow Jongin had been feeling for exactly two months. He hadn’t always been like this. He’d been like this since he’d first seen Chanyeol, maybe a little before that. This wasn’t his own sadness, not justified by his own life. It was a sadness for the life Chanyeol had lost. Even now, he felt it, in the numbest at the tips of his fingers, in the twitching corner of his mouth. Bigger than ever.

Chanyeol shook his head, barely, he was still laying against the pillow.

"There’s no one to cry for my death in this world." He smiled but it wasn’t really a smile. It was the tug of lips that preceded the drop of tears. Jongin had felt it many times on his own face. Even now, he could feel it, but Chanyeol’s eyes remained dry. "I don’t have anyone. My mother passed away long ago. My father probably doesn’t know I exist. I fucked up all of my friends and betrayed them when I decided to get out of business. That’s what cost me my life."

"They set your apartment on fire?" Jongin repeated, barely even hearing his own voice over how loud shock rang in his head.

He had no idea Chanyeol had gone through that. He must’ve gone through a lot. A lot of pain. He’d died in a fire. Jongin’s throat clogged up, breath trying its hardest to slither in. Only a thin string of air managed to reach his lungs with each inhalation. He didn’t ask if Chanyeol had been awake, asleep, he didn’t ask. He wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t bear to know. He still called them friends.

"It was a lot of shitty people. And important people," Chanyeol said, a little snort at the end of his words. it didn’t sound anything remotely close to positive.

Jongin’s hand found Chanyeol’s hand but this time, he properly held his fingers, gave them a squeeze. He wanted Chanyeol to physically feel that Jongin was there for him, with him. When Chanyeol gave his hand a squeeze back, Jongin settled on bushing his thumb over his knuckles. All that soft, pretty skin had once been burned. This wasn’t even skin. He wasn’t sure what this was. But it was Chanyeol and right now, that was all that mattered to Jongin.

"Since there’s no one to mourn me, you’re the chosen one," Chanyeol said, looking up from his hand to Jongin’s eyes. He still looked as sad but at least, he wasn’t avoiding his gaze anymore.

That sounded familiar. That was exactly what Jongin had read in that book about death practices.

"By whom? Death angels? God?" he asked, genuinely curious even though just pronouncing those words felt ridiculous.

"Something like that?" Chanyeol said, puffing his words with a laugh. It didn’t echo as empty. But he pressed his lips together and Jongin knew they wouldn’t be able to joke around properly yet. "But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re constantly feeling sad because of me. You live your life by crying for me."

Just hearing that, Jongin wanted to cry. But he ignored the way his throat felt like it was curling up on itself, held it in. He didn’t want to cry right now, he didn’t want Chanyeol to feel guilty all over again. He hadn’t even finished feeling guilty, Jongin could tell by the way he was looking at him like _he_ would start crying at any moment.

"It’s not because of you," Jongin whispered, voice melted down by the pressure he felt on his chest.

"It literally is, Jongin," Chanyeol said, huffing through the tininess of his smile.

Jongin wished it was big enough for him to see his dimple. He would wait until it was. Even if Chanyeol was right and maybe he’d been crying for months just because of him. He was right. Jongin knew exactly when this had started and Chanyeol did too.

But he didn’t blame him. He should. He probably really should. But this was Chanyeol. It all always boiled down to that. This was Chanyeol and nothing mattered more than that.

"Fine then," he mumbled, lacing his fingers through Chanyeol’s. Their hands looked pretty nice together, pretty right. He looked at Chanyeol again, saw the sadness in his eyes, felt it in the deepest corner of his own chest, held Chanyeol’s hand tighter. "You have to stay with me through the sadness then. Since it’s your fault."

This wasn’t really mourning, Jongin supposed. Mourning didn’t just stop at sadness. He was just weeping for an abandoned soul’s death. That was where his duty stopped.

Chanyeol huffed a sound out, half of a laugh. It was short, chopped, but sounded genuine, brightened by the tiny wrinkles around his eyes. They appeared whenever he was happy or laughed. Jongin would very much like to see it a lot, for a long time.

He traced Chanyeol’s smile with his gaze, measured the plumpness of his lower lip with his bare eyes. Chanyeol nodded but Jongin still didn’t look away from his lips. He wished he could’ve kissed them, maybe. He watched them get closer to him and wished he could’ve kissed them.

But not now. Not tonight. Not after all of that. Not now. Instead, Jongin closed his eyes and moved away. Chanyeol stopped moving closer and Jongin didn’t look at his face. He brought himself closer to him but slid down the pillow, until his forehead was pressed somewhere between Chanyeol’s chest and his neck. He could barely feel anything over the loudness in his chest. Chanyeol had moved closer. Maybe it was all in Jongin’s head. It wasn’t. But they didn’t need that. Jongin didn’t need that, not right now.

He just needed to feel him, feel that he was there. He needed to think a little, this was a lot. He didn’t anything else for now.

For a moment, Chanyeol remained unmoving. Jongin’s eyes remained squeezed shut and his heart fearful in his chest. When he felt Chanyeol’s arm wrapping around him, the tension in his body loosened.

"If thats what you want, if that’s all you want, I’ll do that," Chanyeol said, holding him tightly, hand rubbing tenderness into Jongin’s arm.

That was enough for now. Chanyeol understood, Jongin understood what he meant too. It was enough for them to spend the night together, soothed and in slumber.

"Nah, I don’t think I’ll come," Jongin said, looking through the shelves in search for that book Jongdae needs for school.

They’d been looking for it for a while now and Jongdae refused to just go and ask someone who worked here for help. He never really liked asking for help. Jongin didn’t mind, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do than look for that book with Jongdae for hours.

"You’ll leave me sad and drunk alone?" Jongdae said, looking at him with that exaggerated expression of sadness on his face. It was amazing what one could do with flexible eyebrows.

"You don’t always get drunk," Jongin snorted, pushing him away by the arm so he could crouch down and look at the lower shelves. There was so many cinematography textbooks, it was much easier for Jongin, he mostly just needed actual literary works. "Just once in a while. You don’t like it."

Jongdae crouched down next to him with a sigh. "That’s besides the point."

Jongin looked at him. He knew Jongdae wouldn’t force him to go to any kind of party and Jongin wouldn’t force himself for it either. He wasn’t feeling crowds nowadays. He always felt worse at parties. Now, he knew that it wasn’t really people’s fault, but that didn’t matter. He’d rather stay at home and go another time, when he really felt like it.

But something was obviously bothering Jongdae and it wasn’t Jongin’s assured absence.

"Still having trouble with her?" Jongin asked, reaching to pull a book out of the shelf by the upper corner of its spine. He read the title carefully, decided that it wasn’t what Jongdae had said, and pushed it back to its place.

He knew there probably wasn’t much change between them. It had been this way for a while, after all, it was stagnating. Some days it was okay, some days they just fought about it.

"Not really trouble. We talk normally. Just as usual, you know," he said, swaying a little on his feet. The usual wasn’t as great as Jongdae wanted, Jongin knew.

"Is this it?" Jongin asked, pointing to a book that had a title similar to the one Jongdae was looking for.

"No," Jongdae shook his head, reaching to hold onto one of the shelves for balance. "I know you think we should cut it off."

Jongin furrowed his eyebrows and looked at him.

"That’s not what I think," he said, softly. That really wasn’t it. He felt bad. That was how Jongdae perceived his thoughts.

He hadn’t been the most understanding about this situation, perhaps.

"You keep telling me to go all or nothing," Jongdae said, sprinkling a laugh into his words. It lightened the accusation but not enough for Jongin not to feel bad.

He furrowed his eyebrows, looking back at the books. Maybe he hadn’t measured his words enough. He just wanted Jongdae to be happy. Maybe he hadn’t said that enough. He hadn’t meant to make Jongdae feel stupid or unsupported. Just like Mark.

"I just think you should do whatever you feel like doing," he said, waving a hand in front of him to illustrate his words, to keep himself focused enough.

He didn’t want to say the wrong things. He needed to think about other people’s emotions, not only what was good for them. He had no idea Jongdae felt this way.

"I’m not in your relationship, or in either one of you’s head." He would never be. He would never be able to fully understand what was happening between them. He could just give advice and even then, maybe he shouldn’t. Not everyone needed advice. Jongin put too much importance into advice. Advice wasn’t support. Or else, Mark wouldn’t be mad at him. They hadn’t talked at all since Jongin’s uncalled for accusations."I know only what you tell me, that’s just your side of the story. And I don’t know everything either. There’s probably plenty of very good stuff between you two that I know nothing about. So what I think doesn’t really matter. If the way things are now is the way for you to be comfortable, then there’s nothing wrong about things not changing."

"You really think so?" Jongdae asked, looking at him through the straight seriousness of his eyebrows.

Jongin didn’t like that Jongdae even asked that question. "You don’t need my permission or approval for anything in your life, Jongdae," he said, trying to lighten his words with a joking tone. It sounded crooked even to his own ears, as crooked as his stomach was starting to feel.

"I know," Jongdae laughed, a quiet sound. "I’m just surprised to hear that."

"I guess I usually just tell you what’s wrong and what’s right," Jongin snorted, shaking his head at himself. Then, his eyes caught the title they were looking for. His hand jumped to the book and he pulled it out. "Is this it?" he asked, showing it to Jongdae.

Jongdae’s eyebrows shot up. "Yes," he chirped, grabbing the book from him and hugging it to his chest for a dramatic moment that made Jongin laugh. When he opened his eyes again, he smiled at him. "You just want to help, I know," he said and Jongin didn’t smile, just looked at him, but hearing that alleviated the guilt a little. "Now, I need to hurry to work," Jongdae said, standing up.

Jongin followed the movement, knees cracking a bit. He was so ancient already.

"I’ll stay a little more to look for a book," he said, to which Jongdae nodded.

He asked Jongdae to keep him updated on the girlfriend situation, promised him that he’d come to the next party, then watched him head down to the check out section. Once he was away, Jongin followed his path to the staircases but went up to the third floor. It didn’t take too long to find the book on death practices. Jongin was glad that it was still here. He’d asked Chanyeol about it, hadn’t been that surprised to find out that Chanyeol had been there that day and had dropped the book for him to find it. Just because he wanted to ease Jongin into the idea of him being a ghost. He’d said it right before vanishing. Jongin now knew how he managed to be gone by the time he woke up in the morning.

He grabbed the book and found one of the very few seats scattered around the bookstore, settling on it. He took a deep breath in before opening the book and looking for that legend he’d gotten a glimpse of.

Jongin spent a moment sitting there and reading, thinking about Chanyeol, reading the same exact things Chanyeol had told him, thinking about him, reading a chapter about ghosts, about deals between spirits and humans being sealed through a kiss, about ghosts suffering eternally and roaming around the earth with nowhere to go, thinking about how much Chanyeol must be suffering.

It was a slow afternoon. Jongin didn’t move, continued reading. It took him a little time, he was much slower than his usual reading pace. But this was real, this wasn’t a story imagined by a human being. This was the reality of the being who mattered the most to him. A being who suffered by just being on earth. A being who most probably needed to attain its spiritual freedom, away from here.

Jongin could take a nap right now.

He turned his head to the left, gaze gliding down Chanyeol’s profile. He was looking up at the ceiling, Jongin could hear the sound of his fingers drumming on his stomach. He always did that when they had nothing to say to each other and just enjoyed the shared silence.

They’d been playing games the whole afternoon, Jongin was a little tired but happy. Very happy that nothing had really changed between them. Except the fact that he felt like there was some kind of countdown ticking somewhere above their heads.

Chanyeol turned his head to him after a moment and when their gaze met, Jongin looked away. Being in bed with Chanyeol, laying so close to him was starting to be a little difficult, a little constricting. A bit too heart fluttering.

Instead of focusing on the strange sensation of beating in his stomach, he chose to ask questions. Chanyeol answered them now. That was another difference.

"Are you a soul?" Jongin asked, blurting it out directly since he wasn’t sure how else to phrase that thought.

He’d been thinking about it, about a lot of things. Some of them, he was too scared to ask.

His gaze was drawn to Chanyeol again when he heard him move. He looked at him as he turned to lay on his side, digging his elbow into the mattress and supporting his head on his palm.

"If I were just a soul, I wouldn’t be so handsome," he said, taking on that tone that dripped with confidence and just a tinge of amusement. Chanyeol was very good at amusing both himself and Jongin who huffed a snort out."I’d look like nothing."

"Right," Jongin replied, nodding his head and looking away and back to the ceiling instead.

Silence fell between them again, shrouding them in a calmative ambiance. Jongin liked it, the fact that they could be as loud as possible while playing games, laughing and trying to sabotage each other with pushes and pulls, but could also just stay together without saying much and without it being awkward. They’d been friends for a while now. Jongin hadn’t even realized how long it had been but midterms were already about to lock him in his studies.

"I’m very real," Chanyeol said, dissipating the silence. Jongin didn’t look at him. He didn’t want him to see that hearing those words still made him feel odd. He still needed to hear those words. But maybe Chanyeol already knew that. "I’m here."

Jongin was very glad he was here. But that didn’t matter that much.

"But are you happy to be here?" he asked, finally turning to Chanyeol. He stretched his arms then let his hands fall on his stomach again. "In this world, I mean," he developed when Chanyeol gave him a confused look.

"I’m happy to be with you," Chanyeol said, the earnestness in his eyes reflecting into the firmness of his voice. Jongin was laying down, he was a little higher up. He was handsome even from this angle. It was a little unfair. Hearing that felt unfair too. "You know," Chanyeol spoke again, curling his lips into a small smile. "I met a few people like me, wandering. Some of them came in contact with their cryers, some of them hadn’t. Some people didn’t even have any. But I’m glad I met you. It makes all of this less lonely."

That should make Jongin happy and glad that they had met, and he was. He really was but that didn’t change the fact that Chanyeol was stuck here and did feel lonely. He’d just said so himself. And loneliness was such a heavy feeling, Jongin hated the fact that Chanyeol had to let it crush him. He had no choice. Or didn’t know that he had a choice. Jongin didn’t know if there was any other option, but he knew that Chanyeol must feel incredibly lonely in a world full of life.

"I’m really glad we met too," he replied, still, feeling the sincerity in his voice strumming against his own heart. It was just a little painful, grew even more painful when Chanyeol smiled at him, lighting up his cheek with a dimple.

Maybe Chanyeol would be even happier if he wasn’t here. Maybe Jongin would be devastated without Chanyeol, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t help him go to a better place. If there was such a thing. He didn’t want to ask, not yet.

Instead, he asked Chanyeol how he managed to spot other ghosts. Chanyeol always made the both of them laugh a lot whenever he actually replied to Jongin’s questions.

Jongin didn’t have that much trouble focusing on studying today. Maybe the pressure of midterms starting next week was enough for him to put aside every other thing in his head.

He didn’t really have much to study, midterms didn’t apply to every subject he studied but he knew that getting a good grade on his midterms would allow him to relax just a little bit once finals would come. Those were the worst.

Sitting on his desk, he was bent over that book about literary terms and movements again. He’d revised all movements earlier and now was refreshing his own memory about stylistic figures and definitions. Those were so easy to forget. He knew using actual literary terms in his essays would be a bonus. In the midst of trying to memorize what a chiasmus was, his phone lit up. He looked at it once, where it laid right next to his bottle of water, looked back down at his book, poked his lower lip with the tip of his pen, then put the book down. The curiosity was too strong.

He grabbed his phone and smiled when he saw it was Ryan. They hadn’t talked in a while.

_Hey! I wanted to let you know I actually found a job!!_

Jongin’s thumbs aggressively typed his excitement into the screen.

_Really?? I’m so glad for you! Where?_

He stared at the screen, watching the bubble pop up to indicate a reply was being written.

_I got hired at the supermarket_

_You know the one where you told me your friend worked_

_It took a while but they actually hired me_

_So thank you, it’s kinda thanks to you_

Jongin was so incredibly happy to hear that. He knew he’d been struggling for a while now. Hopefully, things would only get better from now on for him.

_I really didn’t do much_

_If you got hired it’s because you’re an amazing catch_

_But I’m so happy for you I hope things will be okay from now on for you_

He put his phone down and reached for the bottle, taking a sip. It felt refreshing, knowing that he was still pretty good at helping people. Even though he knew he really hadn’t done much to help him. When Jongin had finished screwing the cap back on, he’d replied.

_Thank you :’(_

_I’ll have to skip a few classes to adjust to the working schedule but it’ll be okay_

_I’ll just tell the teachers about it and it won’t be too much either_

_Yes they’ll understand I’m sure_

_You can do this!!!_

He sent him a happy emoji and Jongin put his phone down with a sigh. This felt just a little bittersweet. He wished things would’ve been that easy with Mark. Although, he supposed his approach had been completely different when he’d sent the messages that had upset him. Jongin had been in a bad place mentally at that time and he hadn’t measured his words.

That wasn’t an excuse though. When he thought back on it, he’d never really been very supportive of Mark’s decision. He’d even read back the messages they’d exchanged and it hadn’t been too difficult to notice he’d been way too worried and negative. That wasn’t what Mark needed. Jongin had only wanted to tell him to do the best for him but he supposed he should’ve said it another way.

With another sigh, he grabbed his pen back and decided to just focus on being happy for Ryan for now. He needed to study more.

Standing in front of the tram stop, Jongin pushed his hands into his hoodie's pockets and looked around. March would come to an end next week, as soon as his midterms would be done, and the weather was still pretty cold. He should’ve worn a jacket.

That wasn’t really what he was thinking about, however. A man drove by on the rails with his scooter and Jongin followed him with his gaze, turning his head the other way when someone lit a cigarette next to him and blew the smoke in his direction. He stepped farther away from the guy and turned the volume of his music up a little, tucking his earphones in better.

With a sigh, he continued observing his surroundings. There was a lot of people on the opposite stop, most of them gathered on the right. A man sitting on the bench and reading the newspaper, a group of teenagers talking, a man looking gloomy with a suitcase in his hands and a strict-looking tie around his neck. A lot of people but not a lot of smiles. Jongin watched them all slowly move, wiggle around, stand immobile, and wondered just how many of these empty-looking people were actually empty, souls who clung to a physical body.

Chanyeol had said it, that ghosts didn’t really hide. They wandered, walked back and fourth with no special destination, but dallied amidst humans. He’d said Jongin wouldn’t be able to spot them and that wasn’t hard to believe, it took him so long to figure out there was something about Chanyeol that wasn’t quite right. He looked at the girl standing on his right, she wasn’t listening to music, she was simply waiting for the tram alongside him, standing there rigidly. She didn’t look happy. She didn’t look particularly unhappy either. Jongin studied her for a moment. He wondered if she was human. Maybe she was dressed too nicely to be dead.

Though, that didn’t mean much. Chanyeol had confessed that he stole all the clothes he’d been wearing and that had explained why Jongin constantly saw him with the same hoodie numerous times. He’d made Chanyeol promise not to steal anything anymore, he would borrow Jongin’s clothes or Jongin would buy him whatever he wanted.

That had been one solution Jongin could offer to him. Chanyeol had looked oddly happy to hear it, had smiled softly, nodded silently, and looked away from Jongin. He’d almost seemed shy, until he’d cracked a joke about Jongin fantasizing about him wearing his clothes. Jongin had almost taken it all back, whined a lot, but then Chanyeol had thanked him with a sincere gaze and a hand on his thigh. Jongin had been happy to offer him that simple solution.

That was the only one he could offer. He wished he could do more, wished he could ease out Chanyeol’s situation, but he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, nor what exactly he wanted to do. He just wanted Chanyeol not to suffer. He knew he suffered even just a little here, in the state he was in.

A woman passed in front of him, Jongin stepped away from the edge of the pavement to make way for her. She bit on a fresh-smelling croissant while passing by him. His gaze followed her. That wasn’t a ghost. Chanyeol had said ghosts didn’t need to eat or sleep or do anything that was vital to human beings.

That had made Jongin smile. Chanyeol always slept right next to him but he supposed he never truly slept. That should maybe be creepy, it wasn’t. Just because it was Chanyeol.

It was Chanyeol but Jongin didn’t really know what he wanted Chanyeol to be. He was a friend. He supposed he couldn’t be more. He supposed it wouldn’t work. He supposed he should stop liking him. He supposed he had no real control over that.

But acting on it would be futile, despite the flirting that he never really knew how to react to. Chanyeol was really good at making him flustered but Jongin was really good at hiding it. He thought so, at least, because Chanyeol had never acted on anything either. Except that time he’d kissed Jongin’s temple while he was falling asleep.

He twisted his hands in his pockets, hearing the tram’s bell echoing as it neared. He shouldn’t think about that. That wasn’t the main issue. That wasn’t what Jongin should think about. He should only think about Chanyeol’s wellbeing and how to help him. He wanted to return it, all the help he’d gotten.

And yet, when he stepped into the tram, slithered right towards the first available seat he could find, all he could think about was Chanyeol wearing a hoodie from his own closet. Maybe Chanyeol was right.

The professor’s voice echoed in the lecture hall, her breath popping against the microphone from time to time. That wasn’t what made it difficult to follow her words. What made it difficult was that Mark had come to class today, but hadn’t addressed a single word to Jongin and was sitting at the very end of the row, all their friends between them.

He wasn’t too talkative either since he’d arrived, he’d just greeted everyone, took part in just enough conversation not to be too silent, and then they’d all went to class. Jongin felt bad. He couldn’t even focus on the class, but that didn’t really matter. He could miss one class, there was no midterms for this one anyway.

Supporting his chin on the palm of his hand, Jongin pushed his computer back. The table was thin and sloped for more comfort. It only made it more difficult for things to stay put on the table. He didn’t like this lecture hall. He didn’t like not talking to Mark and having upset him. He typed a few words when he tuned in to the lecture and what the professor said seemed important enough. Then, he zoned out again. He felt terrible. He was probably a terrible friend. And the more he didn’t talk to Mark about the issue, the more terrible he was getting. He looked at the screen of one of his classmates, sitting right in front of him, watched her scroll through the sunglasses section of a website. He should do something about this, it was his fault after all.

He grabbed his phone from where he’d put it on his lap – it kept sliding off the table – then typed a quick message to Mark. He erased it, rewrote it again, slower and more careful.

_Are you okay?_ was what he settled on sending. He held his phone in hand while waiting for a reply but looked at the teacher. She never really cared for people who didn’t listen, unless they were too noisy, but Jongin still wanted to listen to at least half of what she was trying to teach them. He’d ask for Olivia’s notes when revising for finals, it didn’t matter that much for now.

It was only at the third glance to his phone that he saw a reply.

_Why? Are you gonna try and tell me the right way to feel okay?_

Jongin stared at the reply for a moment, feeling sourness squeeze his lips together and seep into his mouth, diffusing through the rest of his body. He only looked up when Lisa’s elbow knocked into his arm. Their eyes met and Jongin looked away instantly, back down at his phone. He felt her gaze on him for a moment as he read the message again.

He deserved that reply. Is that really what he’d been doing all this time? He hadn’t known, he hadn’t done it on purpose. But in the grand scheme of things, doing it on purpose or not didn’t matter that much. But he still didn’t want Mark to think that way. Because it was wrong and just a little hurtful.

_No, I just wanted to know if you were okay,_ he replied, still not looking Mark’s way.

He wouldn’t see him anyway, there were too many people between them and Jongin already hated that they were having this text conversation while being only a few meters apart from each other, he didn’t need to actually see it. He should’ve asked face to face, maybe, but after that reply, he was glad that he hadn’t. He wasn’t sure he’d be this okay with that answer had it been said to his face.

_I am_ , came Mark’s reply almost right away. Jongin looked at him again, for a while. He usually didn’t struggle so much to find things to say to his friend. He wasn’t sure he was good at talking anymore.

He put the phone down right next to his trackpad, sighing and supporting his chin on a fist. He looked at the dust gathered on his keyboard, until Lisa leaned towards him.

"You okay?" she whispered, looking at him with wide worry in her eyes.

They hadn’t talked about it all amongst his friends. Jongin hadn’t reached out to them after what had happened in the group chat and they hadn’t either. He liked it this way for now, he didn’t know what he thought yet. He didn’t know what he should do either, but maybe just for now, leaving Mark alone and reflecting on his own was the right thing to do.

"Yeah," he replied, giving her a sharp and quick smile.

She looked at him for a while still but Jongin was grateful when she nodded and pulled away again, looking back at the professor. He really didn’t need this right now. He shouldn’t have messaged Mark right now. This wasn’t a problem he should deal with while in class.

Instead, he chose to deal with yet another problem. One that had been devouring his mind for a few days. He grabbed his phone again, closed off his messaging app and pulled up his search browser instead. Before typing in anything, he lowered his phone’s luminosity to the lowest possible level that still allowed him to see the screen properly.

His thumb hovered over the screen for a moment as he thought about what exactly he should google. _How to get rid of a ghost_ , was what he typed first. Then, he decided that that wasn’t really it. That wasn’t what he wanted to do, not in such a violent phrasing. He erased it and typed in _how to help a ghost pass to the other side_. That was it.

He spent the rest of the class reading articles on weirdly obscure websites, googling a few more things, trying to find anything that would help him end Chanyeol’s suffering.

"Do you make me happy only because you also make me sad?"

Chanyeol looked up from the novel he was reading. Still the same one, _Perfume_ , he was on the very last chapter and had jumped in bed to read it as soon as he’d arrived. They’d met outside, on the tram stop, and throughout the entire walk here, they’d talked about the book.

Jongin hadn’t really been into it fully. He’d been thinking about other things, about Mark, about midterms, about his study schedule, about Chanyeol looking so happy and it being real, about how happy Chanyeol made him feel despite all of his sadness originating from him.

Maybe Jongin should try and formulate his thoughts better. Chanyeol merely looked at him for a silent moment, no particular shift in his expression. That meant seriousness. Chanyeol was rarely ever serious and immobile and straight-faced.

"Do you think that’s the case?" he asked, putting the book down, face down. He never folded page corners, only used Jongin’s bookmarks or put the book down in that way for small breaks. That was something Jongin appreciated.

Jongin pulled away from the desk and the class notes, fully turning his chair towards Chanyeol. He crossed his hands against his stomach, leaning back and looking down at his fingers through a frown and a hum.

He thought about it. About whether the happiness felt as rootless as the sadness. It didn’t really. The sadness just appeared and disappeared and came back, but he felt content whenever Chanyeol was there, whenever he thought about him, whenever Chanyeol did something. It all was tied to Chanyeol but in a different way.

"No," he answered then, firm and sure. Chanyeol just knew how to make him feel great.

Chanyeol smiled, the pretty corners of his lips tugging up. Jongin didn’t know what made them pretty exactly. Maybe just the fact that they were on Chanyeol’s face was enough for them to be the most perfect lip corners Jongin had ever seen.

"You know," Chanyeol said, sitting up and crossing his legs, carefully making sure not to squish the book under his knee. "The only thing that’s out of my reach is your sadness. That, I really can’t do anything to alter." He brought his hands together and Jongin saw in the quick jolt of his eyebrows that that bothered him. But he looked at Jongin with sincerity and steadiness in his gaze soon enough. "But the rest, I’m really doing my own best for you to feel it."

There was something about Chanyeol’s voice as he pronounced those words that felt too close, intimate. There was a good distance between them, Jongin’s room wasn’t big but he was near his desk and Chanyeol was on the bed, and yet, Jongin felt as if Chanyeol had whispered those words right into his ear. It made him feel too vulnerable, too exposed when Chanyeol gazed at him in silence, until Jongin saw his gaze dropping lower.

He pressed his lips together as if that would take away the sensation of tingling Chanyeol’s gaze had landed on them, then rotated towards the desk again, shoulders dropping with a sigh. He didn’t know what to say.

"Thanks for doing it," he settled on saying, quickly, because he didn’t want Chanyeol to think those words had made him unhappy. They made him too happy.

That was the issue. Jongin now stayed up at night thinking about how Chanyeol would vanish never to reappear again and then Jongin would never feel it ever again. He didn’t want to get used to it. He was already used to it, to Chanyeol being his friend. He didn’t need to get used to Chanyeol looking at him as more than a friend, attempting to kiss him. Because that was what had happened the other day, when Jongin had turned away from it.

"Why are you sad?" Chanyeol asked and Jongin heard the dulcified care in his voice even above the sound of fabric against fabric.

When he turned his head to look at him, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, feet to the ground. Jongin looked at his socked toes, at how firm his feet were pressed to the ground. He didn’t want to ground Chanyeol here, in a world he didn’t really have his place in. He didn’t want to be attached to him, didn’t want Chanyeol to be attached to him either. He just wanted Chanyeol to be happy.

"Is it because of Mark?" Chanyeol asked again when he remained silent.

Jongin sighed. They’d been talking about this since the problem had risen. This wasn’t really it, that wasn’t why he felt bad at the moment, but he would accept the excuse he obviously needed.

"A little," he said, not even lying. he did feel horrible about it. He turned his head to the bookshelves, gaze browsing through the spines of his many books, the eyes of his many figurines. "I don’t know how to fix it."

"You don’t have to see everything as things you have to fix," Chanyeol said, voice mollifying the harshness of his words. Jongin had heard those words so many times lately. "That’s not really how it works."

He didn’t want to talk about this. He knew. Jongin knew. Objectively, he knew it. But it was difficult to apply it to his life.

"Yeah, I know," he said, giving Chanyeol a smile to soften the way he cut the conversation off. "I’ll continue studying," he said then, turning back to his desk, waking his laptop up.

He just needed to study. He needed to get that out of the way. There were so many things to do and to take care of. Jongin shouldn’t take care of them, maybe. But he felt like he had to.

He focused on his notes, reading, writing them back to memorize things, ignoring the way he could feel Chanyeol’s gaze on him for a moment. Studying was normal, studying was Jongin. He needed Chanyeol to think everything was fine. He didn’t want to tell him that it wasn’t really.

"Have you been talking to Mark, recently?"

Jongin looked at Lucas over his shoulder, body rigidifying mid-movement. He quickly finished pulling his cup back from the vending machine and straightened his body again, the scent of mint tea strong against the scent of the coffee every single one of his friends held in their cup.

He stepped away from the machine and looked at each of them. Lisa was shaking her head at Lucas with her signature exasperation towards their friend, Olivia was looking at him attentivelywhile blowing on her coffee, and Lucas raised his eyebrows at Lisa when he felt her stare.

"What?" he asked, a bit too loudly.

"That’s a stupid way to breach the subject?" Lisa said, exasperation heightening the end of her sentence. She laughed a little when Lucas groaned and rolled his eyes.

This was the first time they were talking about it. Jongin knew they knew that he and Mark hadn’t been talking. That was obvious from their avoidance of each other in the group chat. And he supposed Mark had talked to them individually as well, or maybe not. He wasn’t sure.

"No," he still replied, just to prevent a round of bickering between Lucas and Lisa. He took a sip of his tea, the minty gum taste giving him just enough courage to walk himself through this conversation. It was long due. "Have you?"

They hadn’t talked in awhile now, almost two weeks. Tomorrow marked the end of midterms and the beginning of a week-long break from school. It hadn’t gone too badly for most of them. Mark had attended midterms but not the rest of the classes.

"He’s mad at you," Olivia answered, crossing an arm over her chest and holding her cup on top of her forearm. There was an upset, downwards tug to her lips.

Jongin sighed. "I just wanted him to think about it well," he clarified, looking at each of his friends with an equal amount of regret in his eyes. He should’ve kept his mouth shut. It would’ve spared him so much trouble.

"He’s been thinking about it since the beginning of the year," Lucas said, shaking his head along his sentence but keeping his voice low enough for it not to sound like an accusation.

Jongin knew this was a normal conversation. He looked down at the foam in his cup. They were just taking matters into their own hands since neither Mark nor Jongin were doing much. Jongin was just too scared, it felt like whatever he said, it only came off as wrong and hurtful to Mark.

"I know," he said, stretching his words into a tired note. Not physically, mentally. Contrary to the student who walked towards the machine with the darkest circles ever under her eyes. Jongin looked at his friends again as she started pressing on buttons. "I know I put too much pressure on him. It really wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to help him but I guess he just needed support instead of help. It was really lame of me," he mumbled against the rim of his cup.

He’d been thinking about it a lot. He was slowly realizing his own wrongdoings and even if Mark had been a little aggressive last time he’d tried talking to him, Jongin knew that at the bottom of it, it was his fault anyway. Mark hadn’t done anything wrong.

"Sometimes, you just have to let it go, you know," Lisa said, shrugging by raising her cup a bit to the left. "You don’t have to help people. Or tell them you’re going to help them. You have to let them decide what’s good for themselves."

Jongin couldn’t help but let out a laugh full of air when he heard that. The girl took her coffee after many beeps from the machine and left.

"Why are you laughing?" Lucas instantly said, furrowing his eyebrows. He really hated people who laughed in the midst of serious conversations.

Jongin shook his head, let the shadow of his smile linger on his lips.

"I’ve just been hearing that a lot nowadays. Similar things," he explained, watching Lucas’ shoulder perk up and fall back down with a silent laugh.

"If you hear it from many people, then it means it’s true," he said, raising his eyebrows and lidding his eyes in mock condescendence. "That’s the law."

"Who made that law?" Jongin snorted, although he knew he was right.

"Another law is going to class on time," Olivia jumped in, showing the time displayed on her phone to them. They had two minutes to get to class and the building was on the other side of campus.

Lucas groaned and Jongin sighed as he turned around and started walking, everyone else following.

"I should apologize, right?" he asked, looking on either side of him.

On his right, Lucas reached to throw his arm around his shoulder.

"I don’t think this is the kinda stuff you could make up for by kicking each other’s ass on Fortnite," he said, twisting his mouth to the side. Jongin laughed at his silly expression.

"I think you should, yeah," Lisa said and when Jongin looked at his left, Olivia was nodding her head in agreement. "I know that’ll be enough for things to be okay again. He’s just upset. As long as you explain yourself clearly, it’ll be okay. Your intentions weren’t bad, we all know that."

Jongin sighed, nudged Lucas’ side with his elbow until he pulled his very heavy arm away from his shoulders. The weight of all the goofiness he carried in his body was quite abundant.

"I’ll do it soon," he promised, to his friends and to himself.

He knew that was the right to do and he was willing to do it. He missed his friend more than a little bit.

The next day, when Jongin greeted his mother, avoided her questions about midterms with overplayed confidence, and went up to his room, he decided that maybe it was time to install a few borders between Chanyeol and him.

As soon as he opened the door, he saw Chanyeol standing in front of his bookshelves, a hand pressing a finger against the spine of one of his many books. Jongin stopped at the door, surprised to see him there, even more flustered when Chanyeol smiled widely at him. Sometimes, he expected Chanyeol’s dimple to jump out of his cheek and bounce around in the happiness it always displayed. It never did. It only looked very attractive and content where it was.

Jongin closed the door and smiled back at him, albeit not as big. They hadn’t seen each other the whole week because Jongin’s evenings were spent studying for midterms and resting and he had missed Chanyeol and was glad midterms were done and break had started but maybe right now wasn’t the best moment to see each other.

"You’re free!" Chanyeol chirped, stepping away from the books and towards him instead. "How did it go today?"

"Yeah," Jongin answered, laughing a weird sound. He locked the door, like he always did, then stepped to his desk. "It went alright. My hand hurts a bit from writing too much but it’s okay now."

He laid his bag down on the desk, hearing Chanyeol follow him around only to step aside towards the bed instead. His hands loosened on the straps of his bag.

"I was thinking that we could watch a funny movie as celebration for your break," he said and when Jongin glanced at him, he was plopping down on the bed. His hair wavered a little. He always had the same cut, Jongin had learned that that was a default with his appearance. "I even thought about ones you might like," he added, the highest corners of his cheeks glowing proudly when he smiled.

Jongin looked away and nodded, a bit too hard but not hard enough to shake off the guilt squeezing his stomach into a shaky bundle.

"Sure, good idea," he said before pursing his lips. He had to get his laptop out of his bag for that.

"Are you okay?" Chanyeol asked, standing up. Jongin had no idea how a ghost could be so loud. "Is something wrong?"

"No, I’m alright," he assured, shaking his head and pulling the zipper open.

It would be weird if he refused to watch a movie. They loved watching movies together. Jongin opened up his bag and grabbed his laptop, hastily pulling it out. The book that had been resting right on top of his laptop followed along and thumped heavily once it was gone, the title peeking out of the bag.

"Oh, you bought a book?" Chanyeol quickly caught on it and Jongin closed the lapel of his bag, pressing it down on the book. When he turned to Chanyeol, he was frowning at him. "Why are you hiding it?"

It wasn’t really an accusation in his gaze, but a lack of comprehension. His lower lip was puffed a bit by betrayal. That was somehow worse than accusation. Jongin looked at him for a moment that wasn’t so silent inside of him. He could feel his heart throwing itself against his ribcage over and over again in guilt.

With a trembly exhale, he grabbed the book and pulled it out of the bag, turning it towards Chanyeol. The words _Spirits and their Salvation_ were clear and lone on the front cover. Chanyeol reached to take the book from him, the furrow of his eyebrows unraveling into a blankness that made Jongin cross his arms over his chest.

"I have a question for you," Jongin said before Chanyeol could properly react to the book. He needed to explain himself but he also needed answers and Jongin wasn’t sure who needed what anymore.

"What is it, Jongin?" Chanyeol said, dropping the hand that was holding the book. It swung just barely as he kept it in his hand.

Jongin swallowed heavily before gathering the courage to look at Chanyeol again.

"How did you know I was crying for you?"

Chanyeol looked at him. Yet another silent moment. They had a lot of those nowadays. They weren’t as nice as they used to be.

"It’s just that," Chanyeol started, stopping to furrow his eyebrows again. He pursed his lips before continuing. "Every time you cried, it felt like the flames I constantly feel on my body are gone. As if your tears put them out."

For a split moment, Jongin was glad to be able to feel that wrecking sadness. Just because it was a relief to Chanyeol. Maybe it was worth it. It was worth it. But Chanyeol still constantly felt pain despite Jongin’s sorrow.

"But didn’t you read that in your book already?" Chanyeol said when Jongin remained silent for too long.

Jongin parted his lips, slightly shook his head but still no words agreed to come out of his brain. Chanyeol had smiled as he said that but Jongin knew what Chanyeol’s happy smiles looked like. This was far from being it. This was a wobbly smile that spoke of a fragility Jongin had never seen on Chanyeol before.

"I haven’t started it yet," he managed to say. It probably wasn’t the right thing to say at all. He dropped his hands, tried to justify himself. "I just wanted to learn more about you."

"Isn’t it enough that you can just ask me?" Chanyeol said, the smile was gone, the shakiness of it transferred to his voice. The weakness too.

Jongin closed his eyes for a moment longer than a blink. "You don’t know, Chanyeol," he said, voice tiredly dropping near a whisper as he opened his eyes.

"I don’t know what?" Chanyeol asked, voice a bit stronger this time. Not in a way that reassured Jongin.

He pressed his lips together, looked, admitted. "How to make it stop."

"Make what stop?" Chanyeol questioned, shaking his head frantically. "The pain? Alright. How do you think it’s gonna stop?"

"I don’t know," Jongin admitted, raising his hands in a gesture of despair. He really had no idea. "That’s what I’m trying to search for. I’m trying to figure out how to make this right."

"Make it right?" Chanyeol repeated, voice falling back to a tremble on his last word. "I’m not a problem you have to solve, Jongin." His features hardened just as Jongin felt his stomach squeezing itself harshly. "I’m here. I’m right here. If I was made to vanish, I would’ve done it a long time ago."

That wasn’t it. Maybe that was it, a little. But not only.

"But don’t you think you deserve more than being stuck here?" he asked, voice breaking by the end of his sentence.

Chanyeol let out a breath, loud, huffy, disbelieving. As angry as the lines on his face.

"I _want_ to be here." He shook his head. Jongin felt a quake in his stomach, reverberating into his heart. "I _like_ being here. I want to be here. I want to be with you. And there’s nothing we can do to change this. I don’t even want to change this." He stopped, long enough for Jongin to feel the weight of his gaze piercing through his heart. "But I think you’ve already sent me away in your head."

The anger had petered out by the end of his sentence, leaving behind nothing but a few crumbles of pain. Jongin breathed them in, felt them clogging something in his body, spreading more pain.

"Chanyeol," he said, before bringing his hands up to rub his face, tugging on his closed eyelids.

This wasn’t it. This wasn’t what he was doing. This wasn’t what he’d wanted Chanyeol to feel.

He opened his eyes at the same moment as a loud thump took over the room. The book was on the floor, standing right where Chanyeol had been a moment ago. He’d vanished.

Jongin’s hands dropped, limp on either side of his body. He’d made Chanyeol vanish. That was exactly what he did not want to happen. Maybe this was what he’d made Chanyeol feel like he wanted to happen.

Jongin’s eyes were stuck to the screen. He could feel the sting on his eyelids, around his eyes, he could almost feel like he carried his own gaze heavily at the very end of his eyelashes.

The character on screen tugged his own arm off to reveal a blade before rushing towards the demon, features defined by harsh lines. Jongin almost felt the blade piercing through his own eyes. He blinked and the sting in his eyes was gone but the sting somewhere deep inside of his chest only carved itself deeper in. Even anime wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t good enough because he’d made Chanyeol leave, he’d made him vanish. Jongin had done it again. He took a deep, loud breath in and uncrossed his feet, balanced the laptop properly on his stretched legs, and then crossed his feet again, left foot on top of the other this time. This wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t comfortable because Jongin had done it once again.

He’d done it again and he was left thinking about the person he’d hurt this time. This time it was Chanyeol, this time he really couldn’t think about anything but Chanyeol. What he’d said, what Jongin had said to him, what Chanyeol had carried in his gaze before vanishing and dumping all that weight on Jongin’s chest. He still felt it.

It was unpleasant. Jongin hated feeling it. He hated feeling it despite hours having passed. He hated the fact that he’d put this upon himself. Again. He’d done it again. He brought a hand up to dig his knuckles into his cheek, supporting his head.

Jongin was just like his mother, after all. He was doing the same exact thing he hated her doing to him. Pressuring people out of the want for them to be good, to do good.

His stomach lurched at the thought, like something was enlarging inside of him, trying to punish him for behaving the same way he condemned. He should’ve thought about it. He should’ve analyzed his own actions. He should’ve been more careful and attentive and less focused on what he thought was good. Less selfish. He was feeling a little nauseous. His own behavior disgusted him. The fact that it took Chanyeol just leaving without saying anything and him thinking about it for hours to realize what exactly he was doing. Things shouldn’t have reached this point. It was his fault.

He paused the episode. Breathed in. Rubbed his cheek. He’d imposed himself. Scratched his chin. Life was more than what _he_ thought was good for people. What people thought for themselves mattered much more than that. He’d just made himself look like he wanted to send Chanyeol away. That wasn’t it. But his intentions didn’t matter that much. What mattered was how Chanyeol had perceived it.

Jongin had to understand that. He understood it. He had to actually apply it to his behavior.

Why was there so many things that Jongin didn’t realize all on his own? Why did it have to happen only once things got bad and he hurt people? Stupid. That was what he was. A stupid person trying to do good by not leaning an ear to the other person’s feelings.

He had to do better. He wanted to do better. He would do better. He didn’t want to hurt people anymore. He just had to better himself. He just had to think and correct everything that was wrong about his behavior. For his own good and for other people’s good.

He could do this. But he didn’t know if he’d be able to sleep tonight.

Commuting felt like a different world, a different universe where time was nothing but a loop lasting no longer than the distance between campus and his house.

It was always the same scene, never the same actors, and yet it never felt new. Jongin wasn’t really the kind to observe people in public transportation or crowds in general. He just looked at his phone, looked out the window, did his best not to awkwardly meet anyone’s eyes. It was always the same journey, identical trains he stepped into through the same door every single time, the same automated voice announcing the same stops, the same seats, the same handles he used to balance himself when he was standing. It was always the same exact thing. Redundancy, almost day after day.

And yet, as Jongin listened to the same music in the same playlists on his journey back from school, he thought about that one time the loop had been disturbed by a strange feeling. Looking out the window, his gaze stuck itself on the building a fire had taken place in more than two months ago now. Chanyeol’s apartment, right above a café-bar, right there and then gone when the tram went on its way without slowing down. Jongin still kept his gaze on the window, despite the train station being all he could see now.

It had been three days since he’d last seen Chanyeol. Jongin still remembered the strain on his features echoing in his own heart right before he’d vanished. It had been more than two months since Jongin had first seen the burn stains around that apartment’s window. He still vividly remembered his reaction to the sight, breath shortening, body tightening, time warping around him and dragging him down into slowness.

Maybe that was when. Maybe that was when Chanyeol and he had been tied together. Maybe that was why he’d felt something weird happening to his body. Maybe that was just when asadness that wasn’t his own had been shoved into his body forcefully.

It was with disappointment that he noted that he hadn’t felt anything of that sort this time, nor any other time he’d passed by the building. But that meant Chanyeol was still linked to him. Nothing could break that link, he didn’t think so. Except maybe his own actions.

The music in his earphones suddenly felt too loud in his skull, he lighted up his phone and turned the volume down. As soon as he’d ripped his gaze away from the window, it hit him. He really missed Chanyeol. It wasn’t a realization, it was another constant in his life, a routine that Jongin did not appreciate one bit. It felt wrong to come back to his room after classes and not see Chanyeol around, even his bed stunk with longing at night, when Chanyeol wasn’t there to fill it with his presence.

The next stop was announced and Jongin clenched his jaw, tapping his finger on the handle bar, only swirling around when he heard the doors opening. He stepped out of the tram, turned his music off but kept the earphones in as he waited for the train to leave so he could cross the street. With quick strides, he headed back towards the train station. Every step he took reverberated tenfold in his chest.

Maybe Chanyeol was there. There was nowhere else he could be. He had nowhere else to go. Just Jongin’s house and his own, burnt one. Jongin almost tripped, the haste of getting there as quickly as possible blending in wrongly with the clench in his stomach brought by that thought. Jongin was one of Chanyeol’s only anchors an earth and he’d driven him away. He would find him. He would find him and apologize and do better and never ever hurt Chanyeol again. He could do it. Jongin had understood the problem. He could do it. This was something he could, _had_ to fix. The only thing.

He passed by the train station, ignored the loudly obnoxious singing of a probably high man, and headed towards the building. Once he stood in front of it, Jongin lost the impetus of the moment. He just stood there. There was no one in front of the door but there was a lot of people on the terrace of the café, right next to the door. He did his best not to look at them and not to look awkward to avoid them looking at him.

Jongin just stood there and wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. He raised a hand to scratch his neck and stepped to stand right in front of the door. There were several names on the inter-phone. The name _Park_ prickled his eyes. The name was right there. Chanyeol had truly lived right here, in a place Jongin had seen hundreds of times in his life. This felt real. This felt even realer. He hadn’t needed to see this to know that all of this was real but it was real and the worst thing about this was that it was just the name. No Chanyeol. Just his name.

Standing there, Jongin felt incredibly stupid. What had he thought? He stepped back, stretched his neck by trying to look up to the window. There was still black stains there, they looked haunting from up-close. He looked away again, down at his feet. This was where Chanyeol had lost his life.

But Chanyeol wasn’t there. He looked around, carefully, with attention, trying to spot a leather jacket, a hoodie, a tall figure. Nothing. Just a woman sitting at the café looking at him weirdly.

Jongin stepped back and turned away from the door. What had he expected? That Chanyeol would pop up and everything would be okay again? If Chanyeol didn’t want to be seen then there would be no way for Jongin to find him.

He gave one last look back at the door, up at the building. He hoped Chanyeol was somewhere around, just not visible to the eye. He hoped Chanyeol was there and saw him, saw that Jongin was there for him.

When he left, soon after, regret was heavily chained to his ankles, sinking him down with every step he took. This time, Jongin knew exactly why he felt sad.

It sucked.

Jongin put his book down. He couldn’t concentrate on reading and it sucked.

He grabbed his laptop instead, contemplated moving to his desk to study, then decided to just stay there. After twenty minutes of staring at the screen, at his hands, at his legs, at the shelves on his room, at his screen, he decided that he still couldn’t concentrate. It sucked.

He opened up his browser, scrolled through his social media accounts instead. He watched a cute video of a rabbit, then watched two and a half recipe videos. Chocolate didn’t look as appetizing when it was abundant. Recipes weren’t even as distracting as usual. It sucked.

Everything sucked. This vacation sucked. It was already Friday and Jongin hadn’t felt like he was resting at all. He couldn’t rest when his mind constantly brought him back to his own wrongdoings, constantly fought against him. Jongin was tired of thinking about himself and how to do better. He wanted to actually do better. He wanted things to get better before classes started again.

He grabbed his phone, bit his lower lip, unlocked it and stared at the home screen for a moment. He’d waited long enough. This was the right thing to do. He just had to do it. He’d had more than enough time to think about how to do it. He’d been thinking about it for long. Longer than he’d even lost Chanyeol. It just took a little courage to do it. He didn’t want to fuck up again. He wouldn’t.

He typed his message to Mark. He kept it simple and sincere. _H_ ey! _I’d really like to see you to talk a bit, if you want too_. _We could go the gaming store together tomorrow if you’re free?_ He stared at the words he’d just typed, feeling a hole opening up in his stomach and sucking everything in. He hated that sensation of anguish, the uncertainty keeping his finger frozen right above his screen.

He read over the message five different times, waited a bit more, sighed a lot, then held his breath in and grazed his finger against the send button. As soon as the message went in, Jongin locked hisphone and let out a long breath.

He’d done his part. No matter what would happen, he’d done his part. He’d taken the first step, the one that had to come from him. They could discuss this. Jongin wouldn’t apologize by message, that didn’t seem right and texts could be so misguiding, it would be clearer face to face. As long as Mark wanted to see him.

He swallowed when he saw his phone light up. _Sure,_ the notification read. Jongin unlocked the phone just as he felt something in his throat loosening and saw another message pop up. _Let’s meet up at the tram stop at 14?_

Jongin blew air out of his mouth, one hand patting his own chest in reassurance. He’d agreed. This could be salvaged. Jongin would hate to lose a precious friend over his own stupidity. He’d hate to lose a precious friend over anything.

Usually they would meet up earlier and eat lunch together but this was okay too. Two in the afternoon was a good time. Jongin would be able to stress-eat right before.

He messaged his agreement back to Mark and put his phone down. He’d message the others about it later, right now he knew he would be able focus on reading better. He grabbed his book again and this time, it felt a little lighter in his hands.

Mark and Jongin had discovered this store last year. It had always been there, they just never really wandered into that part of the city center, until Mark had had to look for a Christmas gift for his mother in a bookstore not far from there. It was on their way back that Mark had seen the simple name Game Store above the door, pointed at it, then dragged Jongin inside.

Almost a full year later, both of them were still amazed by the wafts of nostalgia permeating in the air as soon as they stepped inside. Any and all kinds of game consoles were sold inside, ranging from GameCubes to GameBoys, including the oldest games Jongin remembered playing as a child. He would buy a GameCube from here someday, the packagings were battered and old but this was the only way for him to find one. He would buy it just for the nostalgia. Chanyeol would really like that too.

They looked with impressment at the shelves full of the oldest possible games, attentively reading every name one by one. It was easy to get a hold of ancient gems in here, they were just hidden. Mark pointed to every new game he saw, whined in envy when he saw that one game he’d been wanting to buy for three whole months now. He still didn’t buy it, said he would next time. Just like the last time they’d been here.

There were a few people in the store but most of them were at the tables in the back, playing card games together. Jongin and Mark both laughed when a groan of frustration elevated from the area and a teenage boy threw his card deck on the table as he seemingly lost against his friend.

As they browsed through the Funko Pops displayed ona few shelves, Jongin asked Mark how he’d been doing. There was no real sentiment of awkwardness between them, Jongin felt no such thing hanging a distance between them, but he still was careful with his questions and his answers. Mark didn’t seem that hopeful about midterms but he’d advanced in the latest game they’d bought together last month.

It was only in front of the entire shelves full of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards that Jongin found the courage and the comfort to speak up about the real issue.

"I’m really sorry," he said as they both crouched down simultaneously. He grabbed a hefty amount of cards from the shelf but looked at Mark properly. He didn’t seem mad or surprised, Jongin swallowed when their eyes met and Mark waited in silence. "About what I said to you. It was really dumb of me. And rude. I didn’t use the best words and I also know I’ve been pressuring you. And getting involved more than I should." He scrunched his nose. "So yeah. I’m really sorry."

He looked down at the deck he was holding, pressing the pad of his finger against the edge of it, feeling the irregularities of each individual card forming the thickness of the deck.

"It’s alright," Mark said without making him wait too much. Jongin looked back at him, lost his balance, had to catch himself by holding onto one of the shelves. Mark smiled at his clumsiness and Jongin mirrored it instantly. Although, it wasn’t amusement that he felt loosening his features. Just relief. "I’m also sorry for being a little too aggressive the last time you tried talking to me," he said, losing the smile to look at Jongin with seriousness.

Jongin shook his head. "You had every right to be mad. I wasn’t that good of a friend, not the kinda friend you needed these past few weeks."

Someone walked behind them and Mark reached to grab a deck of card too.

"I was just hurt, I guess. Because that really wasn’t what I needed, yeah," he admitted, the softness of his voice carrying nothing as harsh as accusation. Jongin still pressed his lips together.

"I’m sorry," he repeated, truly meaning it. He didn’t mind saying it several times. He just wanted Mark to know that he really, really was sorry and aware of his wrongdoings.

"It’s okay." Jongin looked at him when he felt a pat on his shoulder. Mark was smiling a big smile, one that he hadn’t directed to Jongin in a while. "I know you were just trying to help and you just wantedme to take the best decision, even if maybe that wasn’t the most important thing to me at the moment."

"No, you already knew what the best decision for you was," Jongin said. He didn’t want anyone to just sweep this off as him just wanting the best for everyone. While that was it as well, it didn’t make his behavior more acceptable at all. He’d had a lot of alone time to think about this. "It’s just me who thought that wasn’t the best decision for you. But it was. It is. You know what’s good for you and as a friend, I can only advise and support you. Not pressure you."

"We both apologized, didn’t we?" Mark said, looking down at the deck as he started browsing through the cards. He glanced at Jongin. "So we’re good now. Right?"

Jongin smiled, a laugh airing silence out of his nose. It had been easy. It really was just as easy as admitting he was wrong and asking for forgiveness.

"We’re good if you are," he said still, because Mark had been the hurt one. Jongin had only hurt their friendship, him, and himself. But Mark had still apologized. That warmed his heart just a little bit.

"Then," Mark said, stretching the sound as he looked down at the deck and showed a card to Jongin. It was a legendary Pokemon Jongin would’ve never dreamed of finding back in his youth, when trading cards at recess used to be a thing. "We’re as good as this little guy."

Jongin laughed, the sound wiping away every last bit of tension in his body. They were okay. Relief tugged his chin down and he started browsing through his deck as well.

They showed each other every cute, unknown, or legendary Pokemon they found. They argued just alittle bit about which generation was useless and which Pokemon type was a letdown. Mark had a really huge thing for fairy types that always made Jongin laugh.

They spent way too much time in that store, sitting way too close to the floor while talking about games and their default Pokemon teams back in the day. Jongin had stopped playing that game years ago, still knew way too much about it, but he knew Lucas was still a hardcore fan who bought every single game they released. They took a picture and sent it to him, Mark’s grimace making Jongin laugh up until they got out of the store

He felt lighter as he stepped out than when he’d stepped in. He was glad things had gone well. He’d missed his friend and if this would be their last school year together, Jongin wanted to make the most out of it.

Although, he knew things didn’t just end in apologizing. He knew he wasn’t suddenly magically a perfectly supportive friend. He needed to do more than just apologize. He needed to fix his own way of thinking. This was just the beginning. Thinking about it was different than actually doing the right thing at the moment when he needed to do it.

But Jongin would do his best. And maybe Mark knew it too. It felt great to be able to talk to him just like nothing had ever been wrong, laughing with him even through the nerdiest of topics.

On their way back to the tram stop, they discussed what to do. Their nose was attracted to the delish smell wafting off of that Lebanese restaurant only a few steps away from the store. They’d been talking about trying it out ever since they’d first found the store.

Mark once again convinced him that today was that day and dragged him side. Maybe today was really that day. The day Jongin righted all his wrongs.

What he couldn’t take back, however, was missed opportunities.

On his way back home, Jongin had missed the opportunity of having a peaceful ride. Had he waited just a little longer, he would’ve taken the next tram and avoided the loud violin playing in the train. It was a nice song. It was just always the same song, for years.

Had he decided not to take a seat for merely two stops, he would’ve had a more peaceful ride. The man who’d just sat down next to him carried the stench of sweat with him. Jongin turned his head to the window and took very shallow breaths.

Missed opportunities. Jongin watched a woman go right past the tram with her bike, faster. Jongin had missed a lot of opportunities. Every single time Chanyeol had leaned forward and he’d leaned back to keep the distance between them. He gazed at Chanyeol’s old apartment as the tram went past it. Missed opportunities. Lots of them.

The tram came to a stop and Jongin prepared to ask the man to leave a way for him to get out of his seat but fortunately, he stood up as well. They both got off the train and Jongin took a deep breath in, zigzagging amongst the people rushing to get inside before everyone was even out.

Tucking his hands in the pockets of his jacket, he started advancing towards his house. It was getting a little warmer now. Spring was warmer in the South of the country. It always got warm in March every year before the temperature went right back down again for a while, only to rise again. Jongin had deemed it wise to grab a light jacket on his way out and he didn’t regret it. The wind was a bit strong today.

He passed in front of the bakery, breathing in the warm scent of freshly baked bread. He’d just finished eating and they’d both very much appreciated the food, even deciding to bring the others with them next time, but the scents wafting off of a bakery was never not appetizing. Jongin looked down at his feet as he walked. Feet that had taken him away from Chanyeol every time he’d come closer.

Jongin had missed a lot of kisses. Because that was what would’ve happened. That was what Chanyeol had gone for more than once. He pressed his lips together. He could’ve felt the ghost of Chanyeol’s lips on his with that action. But he didn’t. Instead he felt the wind blowing against his skin when he let his features come loose again. He’d missed a lot of opportunities just because he thought about himself, about what was right in his book, instead of thinking about Chanyeol, Chanyeol _and_ him, about what they both wanted. And Jongin wanted this so bad. He’d always wanted it so bad. And rather than acting on it, he’d pushed it to the background to focus on nonsensical things.

Things that had made sense to his own panicked mind but that really, didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

Once he arrived home, he stretched his arms above his head while toeing his shoes off, a groan escaping his mouth. He dropped his arms again with a loud sigh then walked into the living room. His mother was on the couch, like she often was, her tablet in hand and her earphones tucked in. Jongin walked to stand right in front of her, until she noticed him.

Smiling, she paused whatever she was watching in three different attempts of pressing her finger against the screen. Jongin was used to her technological struggles but still found it pretty funny. He probably always would.

"Hi," he greeted her with, holding onto his waist. He was a little tired, he hadn’t slept well last night.

"Hey," she greeted back, taking the earphones out of her ears as if that would help her hear him better. "Have you eaten lunch? I left a plate for you in the kitchen."

Jongin nodded. "Yeah, I ate already with Mark. But thanks, I’ll eat it later if I get hungry." She always left a plate of food for him, even if she knew he would be eating outside already.

"Alright then," she chirped, raising a hand to scratch at her ear. She was in a good mood today. It warmed Jongin’s heart a little bit. "Did you get your grades yet for midterms?"

Jongin snorted. She always confused midterms and finals, always forgot that midterms grades were only given once class started again.

"Not yet," he said, feeling even more tired now that he’d heard that question. "I’ll tell you when I get them."

This, Jongin wouldn’t be able to fix. He’d never be able to change this. All the questions and the pressure and the hyper-fixation. But that was okay. One day, it wouldn’t feel so bad. Someday, he’d get used to it. He could live through this.

"Aright then," she nodded, grabbing her earphones back again. "Enjoy your last day of vacation then, honey."

Jongin hummed and with a last smile, he headed up to his room. He watched her start her video again with another three different attempts. He pushed himself up the stairs with a bit of amusement, blending it softly with acceptance. Just the beginning of it.

Some things would never be fixed. Some things were just out of his reach. That was okay. Being sad over it wouldn’t amount to anything. He could be sad over it, but he’d stop wishing it was another way. Because it probably never would be. It would always be hard and sad but he could get used to it. It sucked, but that was the way it was.

But it was still unfair. As he opened his door and walked into his room, he thought about how unfair it was that listening to his own advice was more difficult that giving out the advice to someone else. But he could do it. He would do it.

Chanyeol was everywhere in his room.

He was on his bed, right in front of his shelves, in the nooks of his second player controller, on his desk chair, on the corner of every single one of his favorite pages from his favorite books.

He saw Chanyeol everywhere. He’d left part of him everywhere, an image of him, a memory hanging around every centimeter of his room. It felt like it wasn’t even his room anymore. Just he and Chanyeol’s room.

Even his favorite poem. Jongin looked down at the very first line of _Demain, dès l’aube_ and sighed. He couldn’t go past the first two lines without remembering the conversation they’d held about this poem. It had been one of their very first conversations about poetry, one that had marked Jongin, one that had made Chanyeol seem so soft and understanding of things Jongin rarely talked with anyone but his teachers in class.

Tomorrow would be Monday. It had been more than a week since he’d last seen Chanyeol. Classes would start again on Monday. He’d talked everything out with Mark, everything had gone back to normal, but this felt more complicated. It didn’t feel right. It wouldn’t feel right to know that Chanyeio wouldn’t be waiting for him in his room once he’d come back from class.

With a sigh, he grabbed his phone from where it had slid under the covers, against his thigh. It was nearing midnight. Jongin wouldn’t be able to sleep. He just wanted to sleep. He just wanted to sleep knowing that Chanyeol was next to him, or knowing that Chanyeol just was with him. Knowing that he hadn’t pushed Chanyeol away or made it seem like he wanted him to disappear to another world that was unknown to the both of them.

His breathing got louder and heavier as he dropped his phone and focused back on the book. He closed his eyes for the duration of a sigh, opened them again, and tried reading the poem. He didn’t go past the first stanza. This was a sad poem. Jongin didn’t feel it. All he could feel was the longing, the yearning to see Chanyeol. To read that poem with him right by his side. Chanyeol had taken Jongin’s favorite thing and made it even better than it used to be, just with his presence.

Jongin closed the book, dropped his hand on top of it. He wanted Chanyeol back. He really wanted what they had back. He wanted even more of it, he wanted a better version of it. A version they both wanted, one Jongin had held back from them, pushed away from them. He really, really wanted it. He missed Chanyeol.

But he wouldn’t get him back if all he did was wait for him.

In a split decision, Jongin kicked his blanket away and got out of bed. He stood there, next to his bed, and thought about what he was about to do. It was the middle of the night, he didn’t know if he would even find Chanyeol. But he wanted to try. He really wanted to.

He quickly put a sweater on, kept his sweatpants on, grabbed a jacket and got out of his room as slowly and silently as possible. His parents were both heavy and early sleepers but Jongin prayed to whoever was above him that they wouldn’t hear him as he made his way down the stairs. At least, he thought, he now knew that there indeed was someone to pray to.

As soon as he got out of the house, he was hit by the iciness of the night. Even the orange of the streetlights didn’t give him any semblance of warmth. That wasn’t surprising, these lights could be associated to warmth only when they shone upon Chanyeol’s face.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Jongin walked fast towards the tram stop, the cold wind souring up his face into a grimace each time it blew. Once there, he checked when the next tram was. He knew the last train passed before one in the morning so there should still be a few that passed but when he saw that he’d have to wait nine minutes for the next one, he decided that walking all the way there would make him feel much less cold. And he had no time to waste. He needed to be faster than time now, he didn’t need to feel left behind. He didn’t want to feel left behind.

His feet took him to the center of the city in quick strides, his mind running faster than his feet. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do once there. He didn’t even know where he was supposed to look for Chanyeol. All he knew was that he needed to find him, that there really wasn’t anywhere else Chanyeol could be, and that he really, really missed him and wanted him back. Jongin would stop being stupid and dense. He really would. As long as Chanyeol would be there with him, he could do it. For himself and for them both.

The wind pushed him forward stronger and Jongin quickened his steps, calves tensing up with each step. He should probably run. That would be less painful on his body but he didn’t want to run in the middle of the night, he wanted to look around carefully and not look suspicious or weird. He would already look suspicious enough in front of the building because he had no way of getting inside.

There was only a few people around when he arrived at his destination. Someone was sleeping right by the train station’s door in a sleeping bag, Jongin passed by them as silently as possible and ignored the noises coming from the park right behind the tram stop. He knew more people made a home out of the place, on the benches. He headed towards the building instead, noting that the bar-café right next to it was open and pretty full. He would have to look weird while waiting there and truing to figure out how to get into the building.

However, once he arrived there and stopped, chest heaving with breathlessness, Jongin saw that the building’s door wasn’t closed. It was open, just a little bit, enough for him to see it from this close a distance. Jongin waited until his breath evened out but his heartbeat didn’t follow the movement, thundering against his chest stronger than the wind did. He swallowed, wondering if this was pure luck or anything else, and stepped forward.

He pushed the for the door open and it gave in. Nothing had been holding it open, he stood there and checked throughly. He pressed his lips together. Maybe someone had been holding it open for him. Someone he couldn’t see. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking and Jongin should thank his luck.

He walked in and looked around himself. It was a normal entrance hall of a normal building, empty save for the right wall that was lined with mailboxes. Jongin stood in front of them and looked for the one with the name Park on it. He raised his hand and trailed a finger over the sticker on the box, where the name was written. It was a sticker Jongin had seen many times in his life, the kind that was used in school to stick the subject’s name on the corresponding notebook. He felt his cheeks hardening into a smile and stepped back, heading for the stairs instead.

He knew Chanyeol used to live on the second floor, that was where the burnt apartment was, he’d seen it from outside. It was completely silent in the building, he turned the lights on before engulfing into the staircase, gaze trailing around for a glimpse of the reason he was standing there. But there was no one, no sound, just his own feet failing to be silent as they carried him up.

Once he reached the second floor, he stopped and looked to his left. The door was burnt, sealed by yellow tape that indicated a forbidden entrance. Jongin stood in front of it, feeling his stomach churning. He was standing right in front of the place Chanyeol had died in. Maybe he was inside. Maybe he was inside and suffered from seeing the home he’d lost his life in. He pressed his lips together, tugged at his lower lip with his teeth. Maybe Chanyeol was waiting for him somewhere inside. Maybe he knew Jongin would be there. Or maybe he had absolutely no idea and thought he was left all alone in the world and had nowhere to go.

Pain was squeezed out of his heart and flooded in his stomach. Maybe he should go in. Maybe he should call Chanyeol’s name. No, he should go in. He raised his hand towards the door handle.

"Who’s the stalker now?"

With a startle, Jongin’s knuckles bumped against the door and he looked over his shoulder. Chanyeol looked good even under the disgustingly yellow and fluorescent lights in the hallway.

The teasing tone of his words echoed in the silence of the hallway but didn’t settle on his face. Jongin turned around properly and he still didn’t smile at him, didn’t show anything on his features. Jongin knew that discrepancy between voice and face. It was unsureness.

He shoved his hands into his pockets.

"I’m not stalking you," he said, keeping his voice low to avoid waking up the entire building. He took his hands out of his pockets again and left them hanging on either side of his body awkwardly. He didn’t know how to present himself. Chanyeol didn’t look mad nor hurt, but that did not mean Jongin didn’t feel guilty still. He chose to settle for honestly. "I’m missing you."

Perhaps that wasn’t honesty. Jongin was always honest with Chanyeol, he’d been more honest with him that anyone else since the very first day they’d met. Since the very first moment they’d been tied to each other. Honesty was easy with Chanyeol. Admitting that he missed him was easy too. Looking at the corners of his lips twitching up once was easy too. But this felt like more than honesty. This felt like Jongin was being honest with _himself_ , like he was baring himself.

Chanyeol took a step closer to him. There was not much distance separating them, and yet Jongin found it so huge he could probably get lost while trying to reach Chanyeol. This was the first time he saw him in more than a week. He still looked the same. He still had the same effect on Jongin. A heavy heart, a restless heart, a shortened breath, a breath he could feel properly.

"I thought you wanted to send me away so I would stop suffering," Chanyeol said, looking straight into his eyes. His voice didn’t carry the same confidence. It sounded weak and hesitant. He was trying to make a joke out of this, like everything, but it hit too deep for him to be able to do it.

Jongin didn’t even find it in himself to smile.

"I’m sorry," he instantly said. It was important for him that Chanyeol heard it. He meant it. Jongin took an additional step towards him, looked up at him without straying his gaze away. He’d missed seeing him. His voice had missed him too, perhaps, it trembled on every single one of his next words. "I’m really, really sorry for everything I did. I’m sorry for making you feel the way I did. I just wanted to help you. It was very silly but I thought I had to save you. I’m very sorry."

Chanyeol never looked away from him throughout the entire apology but it was only once Jongin was done that he moved. He raised both hands and held onto Jongin’s arms. Jongin could barely feel his touch. He’d probably used too much energy to hide himself until he’d decided to let Jongin see him. He was wearing another hoodie. The same hoodie. The one he’d been wearing the last time Jongin had seen him, one they had bought together. It made Jongin’s heart pinch itself the tiniest bit.

"You can’t save me, Jongin," CHanyeol said, leaning closer to Jongin, still holding onto him, voice as light as his touch felt. "You don’t have to. And you can’t. Just like I can’t suck the sadness out fo you. You can’t do anything to save me or make me go someplace better." He shook his head, looked alternatively at each of Jongin’s eyes. He had such beautiful eyes. Full of a limpid sincerity. No anger. No hurt. "Sometimes, you can’t do anything about some things. And that’s okay."

"I know," Jongin said, pressing his lips together halfway through his last word. His throat felt like it was expanding. He didn’t want to cry. He swallowed, raised a hand to touch Chanyeol’s hand on his opposite arm. He just put it there, on top of it, not holding, not squeezing. Just letting him know he was there. "I’m really sorry. I didn’t know what to do and it was stupid of me to impose my own thoughts on you and push you away," he said, gaze falling from Chanyeol’s eyes but words mushing into each other in their haste to get out of him. "And I know I still have a long way to go and a lot of things to learn but I’ll really do better and-"

"You don’t have to do much," Chanyeol cut him off. It wasn’t harsh, his voice remained cajoling despite the way his voice overpowered Jongin’s and quietened it. Jongin felt him squeeze his arms just a little more, enough for him to know he was being held tight. "It’s not that hard. You just have to stay with me."

"That’s all I want to do," Jongin confessed, voice falling to a breath at the end of his sentence. He’d never wanted anything so much before.

Chanyeol smiled. Jongin’s gaze took in the way his lips stretched, his features brightening with that simple curve of his lips. Its brilliance seeped into him, soaked his heart in tranquility.

"We’re okay then," Chanyeol said, his hands gliding down Jongin’s arms. Jongin’s hand followed it, grabbed by Chanyeol’s as they held hands under the sharp lights of the hallway.

Jongin looked down at their hands, took in the sight. He’d missed it. It was one of his most precious sights.

"Are we?" Jongin asked, just to confirm, just to really know, just because he needed to know if they really were. Just because he was scared of how easy it had been to feel like he’d lost Chanyeol forever.

Chanyeol looked at him for a moment, hummed, traced his thumb over the sight of Jongin’s hand. It felt like a breeze tickling his skin.

"What do you want us to do?" he asked then and it could’ve been a weird question.

Jongin didn’t know what he was asking exactly, he could be asking much more than he was saying, but he knew what he wanted with certitude.

Holding Chanyeol’s hands back with a delicate strength in his fingers, he earnestly gazed into his eyes.

"I’ll cry for you forever, until it’s my turn to be cried for?"

Chanyeol’s reaction was instant. He squeezed his eyes shut and puffed a laugh out of his mouth. Jongin grinned. Nothing made him smile as hard as knowing that he’d made Chanyeol smile.

Although, it wasn’t a joke. That was what he truly wanted to do, even though he’d phrased it with uncertainty on purpose, just to make Chanyeol laugh. He would feel this way forever, probably, and he wanted it. He wanted to be linked to Chanyeol forever. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself, they hadn’t even known each other for three months. That was enough for now. They had a lifetime ahead of themselves to get to know each other even more.

"Hearing that you’ll cry for me forever doesn’t make me happy, you know?" Chanyeol said, looking at him through the sadness shadowing the corners of his smile. Jongin knew. But this was one of those things they couldn’t do anything about. "I hope your sorrow will end before that time comes. But if you want me to, I’ll stay with you until the very end. Until your time comes to be mourned."

This was a ridiculous conversation. This was a ridiculously morbid way for Jongin to confess his feelings, an even more ridiculous way for Chanyeol to accept it and confess back. Because that was what this was. Confessions.

But this was the way things were, for them. This was what everything about them was built around. They could only embrace it, make laughter out of it, and live it together.

"Is there a usual amount of time?" Jongin asked, swaying their hands between them. He was holding Chanyeol’s hands. Nothing had been said directly yet, but he was holding Chanyeol’s hands while talking about their feelings. It made his heart bubble up inside of him, made giddiness fuel the sway of their hands. "For the cryer to be freed from his duty?"

Chanyeol hummed, a habit. "I don’t know," he said with a shrug. "We can find out together."

Together. Jongin liked the sound of them being together.

He looked down at their hands. "You can call me out when I get too obsessed with fixing things," he mumbled through a breathy laugh. It would happen. Jongin wouldn’t be able to correct it in the snap of two fingers. It would be gradual.

He looked up when Chanyeol tugged his hands a little.

"That can be my duty," he said, smiling with his eyes. "I’ll make sure to never stray away from it."

He wasn’t sure how it was possible for so much charm to be gathered into one single person. It was unfair. A little too unfair. It made Jongin’s eyes bounce over and over again in distress between Chanyeol’s lips and his eyes. He couldn’t even decide which one was more enchanting. But he knew what he wanted to do. And he knew what Chanyeol wanted to do so in a split decision, he reached up, closed his eyes, pressed his lips against Chanyeol’s for a slow, stopping kiss.

He felt the softness of his lips, the cold on his skin, the time warping around them to adjust to Jongin’s need for this moment to be dragged out. When he pulled away and opened his eyes, Chanyeol’s eyes were still smiling, brighter than before.

Jongin laughed, a short, airy sound, barely more than a shy huff. His gaze followed it to the ground, his heart trying its hardest to break through his chest and follow the movement.

"That’s how a ghost and a human seal a deal in one of the books I’ve read," he said, justified, even if he didn’t need to do so. But nothing had been said yet and Jongin wasn’t that brave.

"Is that the only reason why you kissed me?" Chanyeol asked, maybe braver than Jongin.

Jongin observed him for a moment, silent, digging his teeth into his lower lip. He felt it. The sensation of having just kissed Chanyeol. A tingle.

"What if it isn’t?" he asked back, not unsure, just questioning. This was direct. This was them talking about their feelings without making it into a joke.

Chanyeol smiled, until he dug a dimple into his cheek. Brighter than the lights above them.

"Then I’d be very happy."

"It wasn’t the only reason," Jongin admitted right away.

"I know," Chanyeol shot back.

"I like you," Jongin fired, unable to hold it back any longer.

"I like you too," Chanyeol said, voice breaking at the end of his sentence.

They looked at each for a blank moment before bursting into laughter. Jongin shushed them instantly, they were still in a building full of people. They lowered their voices but continued laughing. Silly. This was so silly. They’d been holding hands the whole time.

And this was weird and imperfect and they had a lot of things to figure out and they were standing in a hallway at night right in front of Chanyeol’s burnt apartment but they balanced each other out. They guarded each other’s happiness. They could just work together. As long as they worked together, they’d be able to figure this out.

Jongin looked up, obeying to a sudden impulse and moving to kiss Chanyeol again. Chanyeol met him halfway through, surprising him as their lips clashed together only at the corner, unaligned by the suddenness of the movement.

They pulled away and burst into laughter again, until Jongin moved to press his hand against Chanyeol’s mouth to quiet him down. It had been way too awkward and uncoordinated and a failure.

It would be better next time. That too, they would work on together.


End file.
